Dracula dalstroemii Luer 1984 Photo courtesy of © Gary Meyers

Another Flower Photo courtesy of Eric Hunt, plant grown by Dan Newman of Hanging Gardens

Common Name Dalstroem's Dracula [Swedish Botanist and Orchid Painter late 1900's]

Flower Size 2 x 7" [5 x 17.5 cm]

Found in Ecuador in cool wet cloud forests at elevations of 2000 to 2600 meters as a medium sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, carinate, very narrowly obovate-linear, acute, gradually narrows below into the conduplicate, indistinct, subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on a stout, more or less horizontal, 10" to 13.6" [25 to 34 cm] long, successively few flowereed, racomse inflorescence arising from low on the ramicaul and carrying tubular floral bracts.

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Thesaurus Dracularum Vol 3 Luer, Ecobar and Dalstroem 1990 watercolor/drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum X Systematics of Dracula Luer 1993 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 1 Dodson 1993 Drawing fide; Draculas Del Ecuador Pupulin, Merino and Medina 2009 photo fide; Flora of Ecuador No 87 225[3] Orchidaceae Dodson & Luer 2010

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