Pleurothallis saltatoria Lindl. 1859 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Pleurothallis SUBSECTION Antenniferae Luer 1998

Flower closeup

Plant and Inflorescence

Photos by © Wiel Driessen and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website

Common Name The Dancing Pleurothallis [An Allusion to the dancing-like flowers]

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in Ecuador and Bolivia at elevations around 2870 meters as a small to medium sized, cold growing, long-scandent, branching epiphyte with slender, ascending, prolific, ramicauls enveloped below by a tubular sheath below the middle and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the sessile base leaf that blooms in the summer on 1 to 2, loose, 4 to 6" [10 to 15 cm] long including the 1.2 to 2" [3 to 5 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously several to many flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe at the base of the leaf and has an infundibular floral bract.

Characterized by a long, climbing habit with proliferating ramicauls. The raceme of relatively large flowers is flaccid and drooping. The middle sepal and synsepal are acute to subacute, the petals are narrowly linear and the lip is 3-lobed with the lobes basal and obliquely ovate.” Luer 1999

Synonyms Humboltia saltatoria (Lindl.) Kuntze 1891

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Luer 1986; Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVIII Systematics of Pleurothallis subsection Antenniferae, Longiracemosae, Macrophyllae-racemosae and Subgenera Pseudsostelis and Acuminata Luer 1999 drawing fide; Orchids of Bolivia Vasquez & Ibisch Vol 1 2000 photo ok/drawing good;

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