Brachionidium imperiale Luer & Escobar ex Harling & Andersson 2005Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Orchid Website

Common Name or Meaning The Imperial Brachionidium [refers to the regal size of the flower]

Flower Size 6" [15 cm]

Found in west central Colombia and Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations around 2000 to 2600 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing terrestrial or occasional epiphyte in shrubs with a ascending to erect rhizome enveloped by 2 to 3 distant, mucronate, tubular sheaths and giving rise to suberect ramicauls enveloped by 2, similar, imbricating tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, multiveined, contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter and spring on a slender, erect, 1.6 to 2.6" [4 to 6.5 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence arising from near the apex of the ramicaul with a bract below the middle and another at the base and an inflated, mucronate floral bract and carrying a non-resupinate flower.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XI Luer 1995 drawing fide; *Flora of Ecuador No 76 Harling & Andersson 2005

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