Microchilus plowmanii Ormerod 2005

TYPE Drawing by Paul Ormerod andHarvard Pap. Bot. 9: 415 fig 32 Ormerod 2005

Full Shade CoolLATEWinterEARLY spring

Common Name Plowman's Microchilus [American Ethnobotanist and collector of the type 1944 - 1989]

Flower Size .16" [4 mm]

Found in Huanuco department of Peru primary montane forest, at elevations of 1600 to 1660 meters as a small to medium sized, cool growing terrestrial with a terete, creeping rhizome giving rise to an erect, terete stem carrying 3 to 4, dark velvety green above, pale green below, obliquely ovate-elliptic, acute to subacuminate, petiolate base leaves that blooms in the late winter and early spring on an erect, terminal, pubescent, 11.4" [28.5 cm] long, peduncle 6.92 to 7.32" [17.3 to 18.3 cm] long, provided with 4, scattered, lowermost subfoliaceous, sheathing bracts, rachis 2.92 to 3.4" [7.3 to 8.5 cm] long, laxly to 25 flowered inflorescence with ovate-lanceolate, acute, longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying externally pubescent flowers with tan sepals and a white lip.

"This species is related to Microchilus ovatus but it differs from that plant in having an inflorescence with a shorter peduncle to 7.52 versus 12" (to 18.3 vs. 30 cm), a sublaxly (not densely) flowered rachis, and flowers with a subquadrate (not elliptic-cuneate) labellum hypochile." Ormerod 2005

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Harvard Pap. Bot. 9: 417 Ormerod 2005

Harvard Pap. Bot. 9: 415 fig 32 Ormerod 2005 drawing fide;

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