Microchilus meridanus Ormerod 2009

TYPE Drawing by © Paul Ormerod and Harvard Pap. Bot. 14: 122 fig 12 Ormerod2009

LATER

Common Name The Merida Microchilus [A State of Venezuela where the orchid occurs]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Merida state of Venezuela at elevations around 2300 meters as a small to medium sized, cold growing terrestrial with a creeping, terete rhizome giving rise to an erect, terete stem carrying 6, obliquely lanceolate, acute, petiolate base leaves that blooms in the late winter and early spring on an erect, terminal, pubescent, 28.12" " [38.8 cm] long overall, peduncle 9.12" [22.8 cm] long; provided with 4 lax, lowest foliaceous sheathing bracts, rachis 6.4" [16 cm] long, subdensely many-flowered inflorescence with broadly ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, almost twice as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying externally pubescent flowers of unknown colors.

"This species is quite similar to the Colombian Microchilus scrotiformis , but a critical comparison with material (an isotype and E. P. Killip & A. C. Smith 19287) of the latter at AMES reveals substantial differences. In M. meridanus the dorsal sepal is oblong (not oblong-lanceolate), the labellum hypochile is ovate-lanceolate (not oblong) and the cuneate-obovate epichile lobules spread almost at right angles (vs. oblong, subfalcate, obtuse lobules). I have referred the plant identified as Erythrodes ovata by Dunsterville and Garay (1965) here though it differs in having slightly broader (to 3 cm wide) leaves and supposedly obliquely truncate petals." Ormerod 2009

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

Venez. Orch. Illustr. 3:130-131, Dunsterville & Garay 1965 as Erythrodes ovata not = Microchilus meridanus

* Harvard Pap. Bot. 14: 124 Ormerod 2009

Harvard Pap. Bot. 14: 122 fig 12 Ormerod 2009 Drawing fide

Materials to the Orchid Flora of Colombia Vol 1: 313 Szlachetko & Kolanowska 2017 drawing fide;

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