Masdevallia tentaculata Luer 1982 SUBGENUS Amanda SECTION Amandae Rchb.f 1874 Photo by Ecuagenera and their Ecuador Orchid Website

Common Name or Meaning The Tentacled Masdevallia [refers to the sepaline tails]

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in central Ecuador around 2000 to 3100 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte or terrestrial on roadbanks with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3, loose, imbricating, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly obovate, subacute to obtuse, gradually narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a erect, slender, 2.8 to 4" [7 to 10 cm] long, loosely 4 to 8 flowered, distichous, racemose inflorescence arising from low on the ramicaul, with a bract below the middle and an inflated, oblique floral bract..

Synonyms Spilotantha tentaculata (Luer) Luer 2006

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXV Masdevallia Part 5 Luer 2003 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 3 Dodson 2002 drawing fide; Orchidaceae Masdevallia and Affiliates Dodson & Luer 2009 as Spilotantha tentaculata drawing fide;

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