Pleurothallis powellii Schltr. 1922 SUBGENUS Dracontia Luer 1986 SECTION Brodingnagia
Photo by © Wilson's Botanical Garden In Costa Rica
TYPE Drawing by © Oakes Ames and The Epidendra Website
Common Name Powell's Pleurothallis [American Orchid Collector and Botanist in Panama early 1900's]
Flower Size .6" [1 cm]
Found in Cartago province of Costa Rica and Chiriqui province of Panama on tree trunks at elevations of 500 to 1250 meters as a medium to large sized, warm to cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with stout, erect ramicauls enveloped by 2 short basal sheaths and another loose, tubular sheaths below the middle and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ovate, subacute to obtuse, sessile, broadly cuneate to rounded at the base leaf that blooms in the spring on an erect, arising through a spathe from the apex of the ramicaul, subdense, secund, 6 to 18" [15 to 45 cm] long, racemose, simultaneously many flowered, inflorescence with shorter to longer than the ovary floral bracts.
"Like the similar P grandis they both grow terrestrially in rich, shaded humus of virgin forests. The large flowers are produces simultaneously in long, many flowered racemes. The dorsal sepal is long and narrow. The petals are narrow and curved with a longitudinal carina on the inner surface. The lip is oblong with erect, concave, lateral laobes above the nbase with a pair of adjacent lamellae between the lateral lobes." Luer 1998
Synonyms Dracontia powelli (Schltr.) Luer 2004; Stelis gigantea Pridgeon & M.W. Chase 2002; Stelis powellii (Schltr.) Pridgeon & M.W. Chase 2001
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 17: 22. Panama Schlechter 1922;
The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986;
Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4 Pridgeon & M.W. Chase 2001 as Stelis powellii;
Lindleyana Vol 17: 99 Pridgeon & M.W. Chase 2002 as Stelis gigantea;
Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;
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 Dracontia powellii;
Orchids of Costa Rica Vol 5 Morales 2009 photo fide;
AOS Bulletin Vol 80 #9 2011 photo fide;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
