Pleurothallis simplex Ames & C.Schweinf. 1930 SUBGENUS Pseudostelis

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

Common Name The Simple Pleurothallis [Refers to the lip]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Costa Rica at elevations around 2700 to 3200 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath near the middle and 2 to 3, imbricating others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-oblong, obtuse, rounded below into the sessile base leaf that blooms in the fall and winter on an erect, slender, subflexuous, distichous, 4 to 6.4" [1`0 to 16 cm] long, including the 1.6 to 2" [4 to 5 cm] long peduncle, densely many flowered inflorescence with several flowers open at any one time arising through a spathe at the base of the leaf.

"Characterized by the elliptical, obtuse, sessile leaf bourne by longer ramicaul and a twice longer slender, erect raceme

Synonyms Stelis simplex (Ames & C.Schweinf.) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVIII Systematics of Pleurothallis subsection Antenniferae, Longiracemosae, Macrophyllae-Racemosae and Subgenera Pseudsostelis and Acuminata Luer 1999 drawing fide; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;

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