Dracula sodiroi (Schltr.) Luer 1978 SUBGENUS Sodiroa Photo by Jay Pfahl © plant grown by Arturo Carrillo.

Another Flower Photo by © Dale and Deni Borders plant grown by Jimm Rassmann.

Another Flower Angle Photo by © Lourens Grobler

Inflorescence and Plant Photos by © Eric Hunt plant grown by SF Conservatory of Flowers.

Common Name Father Sodiro's Dracula [Ecuadorian Priest early 1900's]

Flower Size 1 5/8" [4 cm]

This is a Ecuadorian cool to cold growing terrestrial species found at elevations of 1500 to 2400 meters with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3, tubular sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, carinate, very narrowly obovate, acute, gradually narrowing below into an indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer and fall on an erect, slender, 8" [20 cm] long, few flowered inflorescence arising from low on the ramicaul with tubular, oblique floral bract.

Similar to D erythrocodon but differs in the terrestrial habit, the multi flowered inflorescence, the externally orange colored flowers and the abscence of a callus on the petals.

Synonyms *Masdevallia sodiroi Schltr. 1915

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; AOS Bulletin Vol 48 No 7 1979 photo; Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide; The Manual of Cultivated Orchids Bechtel, Cribb & Laurent 1992 photo fide; The Illustratred Encyclopedia of Orchids Pridgeon, 1992; Icones Pleurothallidinarum X Systematics of Dracula Luer 1993 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 1 Dodson 1993 Drawing/photo fide; Manual of Orchids Stewart 1995; Rudolf Schlechter Die Orchideen Band 1C lieferung 42 - 43 pg 2626 - 2762 Brieger 2001; Botanica's Orchids Laurel Glen 2002 photo fide; Orchid Digest Vol 72 No 4 2008 photo; Draculas Del Ecuador Pupulin, Merino and Medina 2009 photo fide; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide

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