Pleurothallis mastodon Luer & Hirtz 1996 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Macrophyllae-Fasciculatae Lindl 1859

Photos by Alfonso Doucette Copyright © 2009, and His Flicker website

Side View of Flower and of Tusks Photo by Ecuagenera and their Ecuador Orchid Website

Common Name or Meaning The Mastodon Pleurothallis [refers to the petals likeness to the tusks of a mastodon]

Flower Size .2" [5mm]

Found in Imbabura Ecuador in wet montane forests at elevations around 1200 meters as a small sized, cool growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 2 thin, tubular sheaths at the base and another in the lower third, and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, ovate, acute, the base rounded to subcordate into the sessile base leaf that blooms in the spring on a fascile, [3 to 5 mm] long, single, successively flowered inflorescence hidden inside a spathe at the leaf base.

Distinguished by the thin leaf and the flower having two long narrow petals that curve to the shape of a mastodon's tusk.

Synonyms Acronia mastodon (Luer & Hirtz) Luer 2005; Zosterophyllanthos mastodon (Luer & Hirtz) Szlach. & Kulak 2006

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVII Luer 2005 drawing as Acronia mastodon drawing fide

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------