Masdevallia minuta Lindley 1843 SUBGENUS Masdevallia SECTION Minutae Rchb.f Ex Woolw. 1896 Photo courtesy of Dale and Deni Borders
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Common Name The Tiny Masdevallia
Flower Size 3/8" [1 cm]
A miniature species from Venezuela, Surinam, Guyana, French Guiana, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia that is found terrestrially or epiphytically at elevations of 220 to 1500 meters in the forests of foothills with slender, erect, ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apcial, erect, coriaceous, narrowly obovate, subacute leaf that gradually narrows below into an indistinct petiolate base that blooms in the summer and fall on a slender, erect, filiform, 6" to 2'[15 to 60 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence arising from low on the ramicaul, a bract below the middle and a floral bract carrying the single flower held way above the leaves.
Synonyms Acinopetala minuta (Lindl.) Luer 2006; Masdevallia surinamensis Focke 1851
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Venezuelan Orchids Vol 4 Dunsterville & Garay 1966; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 3 1970; AOS Bulletin Vol 49 No 9 1980 photo; AOS Bulletin Vol 55 No 4 1986 photo; Systematics of Masdevallia Vol 2 Luer 1986; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 545 Dodson 1982; Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXII Systematics of Masdevallia Part 3 Luer 2001; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 3 COS 2002; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide
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