Masdevallia theleura Luer 1980 SUBGENUS Polyantha SECTION Alaticaules SUBSECTION Alaticaules [Krzl.] Luer 1986 Photo by Duane McDowell and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website

and

Common Name or Meaning The Nipple-Like Tail Masdevallia

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in southern Ecuador at elevations around 1500 meters as a small sized, warm growing epiphyte with stout, erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3, close, imbricating, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly obovate to elliptical, subacute, gradually narrowed below into the channeled petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring and fall on a erect, slender, triquetrous, 6 to 10.8" [15 to 27 cm] long, congested, successively several flowered, racemose inflorescence arising from low on the ramicaul, with a bract near the base and conduplicate, obtuse, imbricating floral bracts.

Synonyms Alaticaulia theleura (Luer) Luer 2006

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIX Masdevallia Part 1 Luer 2000 drawing ok; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 3 Dodson 2002 drawing hmm; Orchidaceae Masdevallia and Affiliates Dodson & Luer 2009 as Alaticaulia theleura drawing hmm tails too long!

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