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Masdevallia uncifera, La Cocha, Colombia
Returning from some birding, we did a second scan for miniature orchids in the subpáramo of La Cocha. With a flower size of 3cm, this one can be considered the "giant midget" of miniature orchids. It is decisively a mountain orchid, occuring between 3,000 and 4,000m.
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.. more
