Shade, cold to intermediary, flower in automn
A small sized, epiphytic or terrestrial, warm to cool growing orchid that comes from the wet montane forests of Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador at altitudes of 1600 to 3000 meters with an erect, slender ramicaul enveloped by 2 to 3 tubular sheaths and a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, verrucose, purple suffused, narrowly elliptic to narrowly obovate leaf and blooms in the fall on an erect, densly pubescent, to 6 to 7" [15 to 17.5 cm] long, successively few flowered inflorescence with a single central bract and has tubular, imbricating floral bracts, with a single flower at a time held well above the leaves. This species has an interesting muscular lip that can be activated to close in a second after which it takes a half hour to relax. Studies have been done to see if this mechanism is a means of trapping insects to achieve pollen transfer.
