Pleurothallis chicalensis M.M.Jiménez & Baquero 2018 SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Macrophyllae-Fasciculatae Lindl 1859
Photos by © Andreas Kay?/TYPE Drawing by © Luis Baquero
Common Name The Chical Pleurothallis [A small town near where the type was found]
Flower Size .8 to .92" [2 to 2.3 cm]
Found in Carchi province of Ecuador at elevation around 1590 meters as a small to medium sized, cold growing epiphyte with green, erect, slender, ramicauls enclosed by a tubular, brown sheath running through the second third from the base, and 1 to 2 other tubular sheaths near the base and carrying a single, apical, green above, microscopically papillate, dull, light green underneath, perpendicular to the ramicaul, coriaceous, ovate, acuminate, edge entire, the base sessile, deeply cordate, with lobes connate for .4" [1 cm] leaf that blooms in the late fall with a solitary resupinate, flower, produced successively from a reclining spathaceous bract ca. .4" [1 cm] long; peduncle ca. .12 to .2" [3 to 5 mm] long concealed within the spathe with much shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"Similar to Pleurothallis dewildei Luer & R. Escobar, from which it differs in the ovate leaves, the yellow flowers with broadly obovate synsepal and the widely cordate, apiculate lip with involute margins versus the narrowly ovate leaves, purple flowers with ovate synsepal and the broadly cordateovate lip with obtuse, saccate apex of P. dewildei. Due to morphology and geographic proximity, P. chicalensis is probably most closely related to P. dewildei, P. bovilingua Luer & R. Escobar and P. calolalax Luer & Escobar. The vegetative and floral features shared are the unusually wide, obliquely triangular petals and the wide lip, which is remarkable in species of SUBGENUS Pleurothallis SECTION Macrophyllae-Fasciculatae Lindl 1859. However, P. chicalensis is easily recognized in this group of species inside the subsection, by the uniformly bright yellow flowers and the broadly cordate shape of the lip. Both P. chicalensis and P. dewildei occur in the Pacific slopes of the Andes (Fig. 3). The type locality for P. dewildei is south of Pueblo Rico, Risaralda, Colombia, on the Pacific slope of the Western Cordillera (Luer 1998) (Fig. 3). Unfortunately, P. bovilingua was described without collection data.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Lankesteriana Vol 18 [2]: 104 Jimenez, Baquero, Wilson & Iturralde 2018 drawing/photo fide
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