Dryadella simula (Rchb. f.) Luer 1978 Photo by © Großräschener Orchids Website

To

Common Name The Similar Dryadella

Flower Size 1/2" [1.5 cm]

A small sized, cool to cold growing, epiphytic herb without pseudobulbs that is found at 2000 to 3100 meters in elevation in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru in the lower cloud forests with a pronounced dry season in the summer and fall and has terete ramicauls enveloped by close, tubular, scarious sheaths that are soon evanescent carrying a single, apical, narrowly linear lanceolate, obtuse, minutely tridentate, gradually tapering to the conduplicate, channeled base leaf with an abscission layer and an annulus from which arises a short to 3/4" [2 cm], few [3 to 4] flowered inflorescence that carries a single successively opening flower at a time held at mid-leaf height all occuring in the spring.

Synonyms Dryadella popayanensis (F.Lehm. & Kraenzl.) Luer 1978; Masdevallia popayanensis F.Lehm. & Kraenzl. 1921 ; *Masdevallia simula Rchb. f. 1875

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965 as Masdevallia simula photo good; Fieldiana Biology, Vol 33, 1st Supple. to the Orchids of Peru Schweinfurth 1970 as Masdevallia simulaLas Orquedias de El Salvador Vol 3 Hamer 1983; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 1014 Dodson 1984 drawing hmm; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 228 Bennett & Christenson 1995 hmm; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 1 COS 1990 photo ok; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 2 Dodson 2001 drawing hmm; Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXVII Systematics of Dryadella and Acronia Section Macrophyllae-Fasciculatae Luer 2005; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Flora of Ecuador No 87 225[3] Orchidaceae Dodson & Luer 2010 drawing fide

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