Pleurothallis nivalis Luer 1976 SUBGENUS Crocodeilanthe [Rchb.f & Warsc.]Luer 1986

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Website

Flower

Plant and Flower in situ Ecuador

Photos by © Andreas Kay and hisFlickr Orchid Photo Website

Common Name or Meaning The Snow White Pleurothallis [refers to the flowers color]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Cotopaxi, Pichincha and Bolivar provinces of west central Ecuador at elevations around 3300 to 3500 meters as a small to medium sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with fasiculate, stout, erect ramicauls enveloped mostly by loose, tubular, imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on 1 to 4, erect, secund, arising through a broad spathe from an annulus below the abscission layer, 10 to 14" [25 to 35 cm] long including the 2 to 4" [5 to 10 cm] long, peduncle, subdensely simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with infundibular, shorter than the ovary floral bracts.

"Characterized by the shortly petiolate leaf and a few erect, secund, densely many flowered inflorescence mush longer than the leaf nand subtended by a conspicuous spathe. The snow white sepals are densely pubescent within, the petals are obtuse and 3 veined and the lip is 3 lobed, the anterior lobe triangular, the lateral lobes rounded and erect and the disc deeply cleft." Luer 1998

Synonyms Crocodeilanthe nivalis (Luer) Luer 2004; Stelis nivalis (Luer) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Selbyana 1(4): 420, f. 101. Luer 1976 Drawing fide;

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986;

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Systematics of Pleurothallis SUBGEN Crocodeilanthe, Rhynchopera and Talpinaria Luer 1998

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Systematics of Pleurothallis SUBGEN Crocodeilanthe, Rhynchopera and Talpinaria Luer 1998 drawing fide;

Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4:264 Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001 as as Stelis nivalis;

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Pleurothallis subgenus Acianthera and Three Allied subgenera, A Second Century of new Species of Stelis of Ecuador, Epibator, Ophidion and Zootrophion Luer 2004 as Crocodeilanthe nivalis

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