Dracula decussata Luer & R.Escobar 1978 SUBGENUS Dracula SECTION Dracula SUBSECTION Dracula SERIES Parviflorae
Photo by © The Longwood Gardens Website
Photo by © Lourens Grobler
Photo by © Gary Meyer
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Crossed Dracula [refers to the crossed tails]
Flower Size 1" x 8" [2.5 x 20 cm]
Found in El Choco' department of western Colombia on the western cordillera in cloud forests at elevations around 1200 meters as a small sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, carinate, very narrowly obovate, acute, gradually narrowing below into the conduplicate, indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter and spring on a slender, sparsely bracted, horizontal, successively few flowered, 1.2" to 1.8" [3 to 4 cm] long, racemose inflorescence arising from low on the ramicaul and carrying tubular floral bracts.
"Dracula nisseniae is most closely allied and now considered a synonym of D. decussata which is also found in the Western Cordillera of Colombia. Dracula nisseniae was distinguished from all others of subgenus Dracula by the production of two to four flowers simultaneously in a suberect raceme. The flowers, long- pubescent within, are very similar in to those of D. decussata. The similar, narrow lips of the two plants are characterized by three longitudinal keels in a shallowly concave epichile that is incurved at the apex. Dracula decussata was described from a single, cultivated plant that still lingers in cultivation, but without flowering. I suspect that if this plant had been cultivated in some other growing condition, perhaps a warmer condition, it might have proved to produce more than one flower simultaneously. Dracula nisseniae may eventually* be reduced to the synonymy of D. decussata." Luer 1994
*D decussata is now the accepted name for both it and D niesseniae.
Synonyms Dracula niesseniae P.Ortíz 1994
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Orquideologia Vol 13 No 1 1978 drawing/photo/herbaria sheet fide; Thesaurus Dracularum Vol 6 Luer, Escobar and Dalstroem 1993 watercolor/drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIV Luer 2002 drawing fide; Thesaurus Dracularum Vol 7 Luer, Escobar and Dalstroem 1994 as D niesseniae watercolor/drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XI Systematics of Lepanthes Subgenus Brachycladium and Pleurothallis Subgenus Aenigma, Subgenus Elongata and Subgenus Kranzlinella Luer 1994 as D niesseniae Drawing fide; Orchid Digest Vol 61 #4 1997 photo fide; Libro Rojo de Plantas De Colombia Vol 6 Primera Parte Saenz 2007; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 as D niesseniae photo fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 1 Ortiz & Uribe 2014 drawing/photo fide;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
