Pleurothallis vargasii C.Schweinf. 1942 SUBGENUS Crocodeilanthe [Rchb.f & Warsc.]Luer 1986 photo by © Rebecca Repasky and The Atrium Website

LATE EARLY

Common Name Vargas' Pleurothallis [Peruvian Collector of species 1900's]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Peru and Bolivia in cloud forests at elevations around 3500 to 3700 meters as a small to medium sized, cold growing epiphyte with stout, erect ramicauls with a loose tubular sheaths near the middle and 2 to 3, loose, imbricating sheaths at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, broadly cuneate below into the sessile-subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in the late fall and early winter on a few to several, simultaneous, more or less secund, 4 to 7.6" [10 to 19 cm] long including the .8 to 1.2" [2 to 3 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence arising through a conspicuous spathe from an annulus just below the abscission layer and has a rose suffused floral bract.

Synonyms Crocodeilanthe vargasii (C.Schweinf.) Luer 2004; Stelis vargasii (C.Schweinf.) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list, IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Luer 1998 drawing fide; Orchids of Bolivia Vasquez & Ibisch Vol 1 2000 drawing fide; Macchu Picchu Orchids Eric Christenson 2003; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Luer 2004 as Crocodielanthe vargasii

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