Pleurothallis sirene Rchb.f. 1855 SUBGENUS Restrepioidia Luer 1986 Photo by © Gerardo Torres

Drawing Drawing by © Fitch and the Curtis Botanical Magazine

Common Name or Meaning The Siren Pleurothallis [Greek Mythological nymph in the form of birds]

Flower Size 2" [5 cm]

Found in northeastern Colombia and northwestern Venezuela at elevations of 2000 to 2400 meters as a small to medium sized, cold growing epiphyte with smooth, stout, erect ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and 1 to 2 shorter ones at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coricaeous, elliptical, subacute to obtuse, cuneate below into the subsessile base leaf that blooms in the summer and fall on a loose, subsecund, 4 to 8" [10 to 20 cm] long, simultaneously few to several flowered inflorescence arising through a reclining spathe at the base of the leaf and has thin, tubular floral bracts.

Similar to P glossopogon and often cited as a synonym but differs in the anterior lobe of the lip which is slender, acute and only minutely denticulate while in P glossopogon the anterior lobe is thickened and markedly fimbriate-papillose.

Synonyms Humboldtia sirene (Rchb.f.) Kuntze 1891; Lindleyalis sirene (Rchb.f.) Luer 2004; Pleurothallis scapha Rchb.f. 1874;

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Die Orchideen Schlechter 1915 as P scapha; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 hmm I think it is P glossopogon; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XX Luer 2000 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Luer 2004 as Lindleyallis sirene

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