Pleurothallis crocodiliceps Rchb. f. 1855 SUBGENUS Ancipitia SECTION Ancipitia Luer 1986
Photos by © Bogarin and The Epidendra Website
Photo by © Richard Korber.
Photo by © Federico Oviedo Brenes.
TYPE Specimen showing crocodile head lip shape with no appendages
TYPE Drawing/specimen by © Rchb.f.
to 
Common Name The Crocodile Head Pleurothallis
Flower Size 2/5" [1 cm]
Found in Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela at elevations of 400 to 3000 meters as a small sized,warm to cold growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls that are sharply ancipitous above the middle and 2 to 3 basal, tubular sheaths and another larger one just below the middle, carrying a single, apical, rigid, coriaceous, ovate, acute, rounded base, cordate, sessile leaf that blooms in the summer to a fascile of solitary, successive flowers, arising through a reclining spathe, .12" [3 mm] long, filiform, reclining, ascending to erect inflorescence with a single tubular floral bract carrying a single successive flower.
In error P crocodiliceps has been in symmetry with P arietina P nelsonii and P microchila, see Lankesteriana Wilson 2017 for the explanation of why they are separate.
Synonyms Ancipitia crocodiliceps (Rchb.f.) Luer 2004; Humboltia crocodiliceps (Rchb.f.) Kuntze 1891
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Bonplandia Rchb.f 1855; AOS Bulletin Vol 27 No 6 1958; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 2 1970 not = P arietina; Fieldiana Biology, Vol 33, 1st Supple. to the Orchids of Peru Schweinfurth 1970; Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing not = P arietina; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Systematics of Pleurothallis Vol 3 Luer 1986; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VI Systematics of Pleurothallis subgen Ancipita, Scopula and Trisetella Luer 1989 drawing not = P arietina; Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 6 COS 1998 photo fide; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing not = P arietina; Orquideas Nativas del Tachira Cesar Fernandez 2003 photo fide; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Luer 2004 as Ancipitia crocodieliceps; Orchids of Costa Rica Vol 5 Morales 2009 photo fide; Orchids of Tropical America Meisel 2014 photo fide; LANKESTERIANA 17(2) Wilson etal 2017; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide
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