Dracula chiroptera

Dracula chiroptera Luer & Malo, Selbyana 2: 367 (-368) (1978).

Dracula chiroptera Luer & Malo, Photo by Daniel Nolte

its native range is SW. Colombia to Ecuador (Pichincha).

Latin Name: 

Dracula chiroptera Luer & Malo

Family: 

Orchidaceae Juss.

Synonym:

No synonyms are recorded for this name.

English Name:

The Bat Dracula (Chiroptera refers to the order that bats are in taxonomically).

Australia name:

Fairy Bells.

Description: 

With stout, erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, subplicate, carinate, elliptical, acute, gradually narrowing below into the conduplicate, subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring in cultivation on a stout, horizontal to descending, loose, successively few flowered, 30 cm long, racemose inflorescence arising from low on the ramicaul and with tubular floral bracts. 

Distribution:

Colombia, Ecuador.

Ecological:

In cloud forest at elevations of 1600 to 2000 m as a small to just medium sized, cool growing epiphyte.

Flowering times:

Blooms in the spring.

Flower size:

15.0 cm.

Cultivation:

Keep plant in partial shade. Plant can be grown in cool conditions. Pot the plant in fine bark with perlite or sphagnum moss. Water regularly and keep potting media moist.

Typus:

Collector Team:

C.A.Luer 1759

Type Herbaria:

holotype SEL

Distribution Of Types:

Ecuador (Western South America, Southern America)

Reference: 

- theplantlist.org

- https://www.ipni.org/n/83968-2

- http://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:83968-2

- http://www.orchidspecies.com/dracchiroptera.htm.