Pityphyllum saragurense ( Dodson ) Whitten June 2006

Plant and Flower Photos courtesy of © Håkan Hallander

Common Name The Saraguro Pityphyllum [An ethnic group of indiginous people and a town in Ecuador]

Flower Size

Found in Ecuador at elevations around 2000 to 2500 meteres as a small sized, cool to cold, pendant growing epiphyte with a creeping rhizome carrying a narrowly elliptical pseudsobulb completely enveloped by a brown sheath called a tunica and gives rise to a fan of thin conduplicate leaves enveloped basally by scarious brown sheaths with 2 hook-like curved ligules attached to the sheathing base of the leaves and blooms on a short, single flowered inflorescence holding the flower close against the rhizome.

Synonyms *Maxillaria saragurensis Dodson 1994

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Dodson vol 3 2002 as Maxillaria saragurense; *AOS Orchids June 2006 Whitten, Blanco & Williams 2006

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