Cranichis pulvinifera Garay, Fl. Ecuador 9: 204. 1978.

Kolanowska, Marta, Baranow, Przemyslaw, Nowak, Slawomir & Fuentes, Alfredo, 2021, Materials to the revision of the genus Cranichis (Orchidaceae) in Bolivia, PhytoKeys 186, pp. 11-41 : 11

13. Cranichis pulvinifera Garay, Fl. Ecuador 9: 204. 1978.

Type.

COLOMBIA. Bristol 1227 (holotype AMES!).

Diagnosis.

Plants 42 cm tall. Leaves 5, basal, petiolate; petiole 4-6.5 cm long, narrow; blade 4-6 cm long, 2.2-3 cm wide, ovate to elliptical, acute, with rounded base. Scape erect, slender, ca. 5-sheathed, the lowermost foliaceous. Inflorescence 8 cm long, cylindrical, loosely many-flowered. Flowers with beige sepals, salmon petals and brown lip, greenish. Floral bracts up to 8 mm long, lanceolate, acuminate, glabrous. Pedicellate ovary 9-11 mm long, glabrous. Dorsal sepal 5.1 mm long, 2 mm wide, narrowly elliptical, obtuse, l-veined. Petals 4.5 mm long, 1.3 mm wide, linear-ligulate, rounded, l-veined, glabrous. Lateral sepals 5.3 mm long, 2.2 mm wide, obliquely ovate-elliptical, obtuse, obscurely 3-veined. Lip 4.2 mm long, 4.5 mm wide, navicular or subsaccate, sessile, triangular-obovate, truncately 3-lobed in front with triangular, obtuse middle lobe and ovate, erose lateral lobes; disc with a pair of inflated cushions which are sparsely covered with large papillae. Gynostemium 2 mm long. Fig. 15 .

Habitat and ecology.

Terrestrial in humid montane forest. It grows at an altitude of ca. 2400 m. Flowers in April. According to Vásquez et al. (2014) this species grows in the Yungas ecoregion at altitudes between 2000-3000 m.

Representative specimen.

BOLIVIA. La Paz: Prov. Nor Yungas. Parque Nacional Cotapata. Bajada Hornuni. 16°12 ’40” S 67°53 ’26” W, 2420 m. 5 April 2006. M. López & G. Villegas 74 (LPB!). Fig. 2 .

Notes.

This species is recorded in Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia. Surprisingly, so far, it has not been reported from Peru.

Figures

Figure 2. Distribution of Cranichis species in Bolivia. A C. atrata, C. badia, C. beckii, C. ciliata, C. cylindrostachys. B C. garayana, C. lehmannii, C. longipetiolata, C. maldonadoana. C C. mandonii, C. muscosa, C. pulvinifera, C. silvicola, C. stictopylla. Base map provided by Natural Earth (www. naturalearthdata. com).

Figure 15. Cranichis pulvinifera Garay. A Dorsal sepal. B Petal. C Lateral sepal. D Lip. Drawn by P. Baranow from M. Lopez & G. Villegas 74 (LPB).