Brachionidium simplex Garay 1956

Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Website

EARLY

Common Name or Meaning The Simple Brachionidium [refers to the entire lip and sepals]

Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]

Found in Morona-Santiago province Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations around 2150 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing terrestrial with a suberect to erect, relatively stout ramicaul enveloped by 3 loose, long-mucronate sheaths giving rise to suberect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 tubular, mucronate sheaths and carrying an erect to suberect, thickly coriaceous, elliptical, acute, minutely apiculate, 7 to 5 veined, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the early summer on an erect, capillary, with a mucronate bract near the middle and another near the base, 1/2" to .8" [1.2 to 2 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence with a mucronate, enveloping the pedicel and much of the ovary floral bract.

"B simplex has 6 pollina and is most similar to Brachionidium pteroglossum and Brachionidium tetrapetalum but differs in the obtuse, tailless synsepal." Luer 1995

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 1 1994 Dodson drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XII Systematics of Brachionidium Luer 1995 drawing fide; Flora Of Ecuador # 76 225[2] Dodson & Luer 2005;

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