Pleurothallis ramulosa Lindl. 1859 SUBGENUS Acuminatia SECTION Acuminatae Luer 1986

Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

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Common Name The Branched Pleurothallis [refers to the prolific plant habit]

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in Ecuador, Colombia and northwestern Venezuela at elevations around 1500 to 2700 meters as a mini-miniature to small sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with slender to stout, erect, prolific ramicauls enveloped by a thin, tubular sheath below the middle and 2 to 3 other ones at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute to obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later spring through fall on a loose, subsecund, slender, strict, up to 4 to 10" [10 to 25 cm] long including the .8 to 2" [2 to 5 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously several to many flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul and carrying sweet scented flowers.

This species is very similar to P sclerophyla in most all respects other than the scandent habit of this species. The distinguishing feature of the flowers is that P ramulosa has an oblong lip without the midline callus and without tall sidelobe margins below the middle. The apex of the column is not as beaked as in P sclerophylla.

Synonyms Anathallis ramulosa (Lindl.) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001; Humboltia ramulosa (Lindl.) Kuntze 1891; Pleurothallis superposita Schltr. 1916; Specklinia ramulosa (Lindl.) Luer 2004; Stelis catenata Karremans 2014

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol I Luer 1984; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Luer 1986; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVIII Systematics of Pleurothallis subsection Antenniferae, Longiracemosae, Macrophyllae-Racemosae and Subgenera Pseudsostelis and Acuminata Luer 1999 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Luer 2004 as Specklinia ramulosa; LANKESTERIANA 13(3): 319—332 Kerremans 2014 as Stelis catenata Orchid Digest Vol 80 #2 2016 as Anathallis ramulosa;

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