Masdevallia mataxa Königer & Mend. 1993 SUBGENUS Pygmaeia SECTION Amaluzae Luer 1986

Photo by Alfonso Doucette Copyright © 2009, and His Flicker website

Another View Photo by Ecuagenera and their Ecuador Orchid Website

Common Name or Meaning The Silky Masdevallia [refers to the pubescent synsepal]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Ecuador around 900 meters in lowlands as a mini-miniature sized, hot growing epiphyte with erect, slender, ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3, loose tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter and spring on a horizontal, slender, congested, 2.4 to 2.8" [6 to 7 cm] long, successively single, few flowered inflorescence arising from low on the ramicaul with a bract below the middle and a tubular floral bract.

Synonyms Luzama mataxa (Königer & H.Mend.) Luer 2006

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXI Luer 2000 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 3 Dodson 2002 drawing fide; Orchidaceae Masdevallia and Affiliates Dodson & Luer 2009 as Luzama mataxa drawing fide;

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