Ligeophila gavilanensis Ormerod & G.A.Romero 2010

Photos by © G Romero.

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Common Name The Rio Gavilan Ligeophila

Flower Size .3" [7.5 mm]

Found in Amazonas Venezuela at elevations around 120 meters as a miniature sized, hot growing terrestrial with a terete, lower half creeping, upper half erect rhizome giving rise to an erect stem carrying 4 to 5, obliquely narrowly elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, subacuminate, margins undulate, green-maroon, petiolate base leaves that blooms in the fall on a terminal, erect, pubescent, peduncle to 1.24 [3.1 cm] long, providded with 3 overlapping sheathing beacts, to 2.44 [6.1 cm] long overall, rachis 1.2" [3 cm] long, subdensely several flowered inflorescence with ovate-lanceoalte, acute, longer than the pedicel floral bracts and carrying resupinate, externally pubescent flowers.

"Ligeophila gavilanensis appears to be most closely related to L. unicornis Ormerod, also from Venezuela, both species having a labellum hypochile with similar sidelobes. From the latter, however, the new species differs in having broader (1.75—2.90 versus 0.93— 1.50 cm) narrowly elliptic to oblong-lanceolate (not lanceolate) leaves, and flowers with oblong-lanceolate, obtuse (not broadly lanceolate, acute) epichile lobules, and an unappendaged (i.e., lacking an oblong, compressed projection) epichile. Another species with a similarly shaped labellum hypochile is L. jamesonii Garay, from Colombia and Ecuador. The latter has a much larger inflorescence (rachis > 11 cm long) of many more flowers and somewhat obliquely rhombic (not obliquely obovate-oblanceolate), narrower (1.5 versus 2.8 mm) petals." Ormerod & Romero 2010

Synonyms Aspidogyne gavilanensis (Ormerod & G.A.Romero) Meneguzzo 2012

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Lankestriana 9(3): 513 romero & Ormerod 2010 Drawing fide

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