Dracula pholeodytes Luer & R. Escobar 1982 SUBGENUS Dracula SECTION Dracula SUBSECTION Dracula SERIES Grandiflorae-Parvilabiate
Photo courtesy of Eric Hunt, plant grown by the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers
Photo courtesy of Lourens Grobler
Common Name The Cave-Hiding Dracula [refers to the central apparatus within the deeply cupped black interior of the flower]
Flower Size 1.5" x 6" [3.75 x 15 cm]
Found in Boyaca Colombia in cloud forsts at elevations around 2500 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, carinate, narrowly obovate, acute, gradually narrowing below into the conduplicate, indistinct, subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring and fall on a puprle, sparsely bracted, horizontal to descending, 2.8" to 4.8" [7 to 12 cm] long, successively few flowered inflorescence arising from low on the ramicaul and carrying a tubular floral bract..
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Thesaurus Dracularum Vol 4 Luer, Escobar and Dalstroem 1991 watercolor/drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum X Systematics of Dracula Luer 1993 drawing fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 4 COS 1994 photo fide; Libro Rojo de Plantas De Colombia Vol 6 Primera Parte Saenz 2007
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