Masdevallia uncifera Rchb.f. 1878 SUBGENUS Masdevallia SECTION Masdevallia SUBSECTION Masdevallia

Plant and Flowers in situ Ecuador

Plant and Flowers in situ Ecuador

Photo by © Lourens Grobler

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Common Name The Hook-Carrying Masdevallia [refers to the tooth on the petals]

Flower Size 1.2" [3 cm]

Found in southern Colombia and northen Ecuador in cold wet cloud forests at elevations of 3000 to 4000 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender, often blackish ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3 loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, subacute, gradually narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late winter and spring on a slender, erect, 3.6 to 6.4" [9 to 16 cm] long, single flowered inflorescence arising from low on the ramicaul.

Related to M laevis with which it is sympatric but M uncifera differs in the taller inflorescence, smaller flowers with narrower, glabrous pale yellow, shallowly connate sepals often veined in yellow and the uncinate [toothed] process at the petal apex.

Synonyms Masdevallia flaccida Kraenzl. 1921; Masdevallia pastensis Kraenzl. 1921

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Otia Botanica Hamburgensia Rchb.f 1878; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Masdevallia Part 3 Luer 2001 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 3 Dodson 2002 photo fide; Libro Rojo de Plantas De Colombia Vol 6 Primera Parte Saenz 2007; Orchidaceae Masdevallia and Affiliates Dodson & Luer 2009 drawing fide; Orchids Masdevallia with its segregates including Dracula Zelenko 2014 photo fide;

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