Dracula cordobae

not known

cordobae = Clever Cordoba, discoverer of this species.
Dodson, pers. comm. 2003,  writes …‘I was on a collecting trip with the late Dr. Al Gentry and Roberto Estrada of Guayaquil to the very wet tropical montane forest about 12 km west of Pinas in southwestern Ecuador in 1979. Roberto had an excellent orchid collecting assistant named Clever Cordoba who had climbed down the extremely steep roadside in search of orchids. He came back carrying a flowering plant of what was later described as Dracula cordobae Luer. It was spectacular and showed promise of being an excellent parent in crosses that would provide warmer temperature tolerance. The elevation of the site was 800 m and therefore rather low for larger flowered Draculas. The plants grew on the trunks of large trees in very wet cloud forest. Also growing on the roadside embankment were flowering plants of Sievekingia reichenbachiana, Polycycnis morganii, and Benzingia estradae among many other interesting orchids’

epiphytic on mossy branches in very humid, high rainfall tropical forest at elevations from 750 to 1000m.

Dracula cordobae bears pendulous, horizontal, very rarely erect inflorescence stems up to 12cm long, which may bear terminal 1-2, successively opening flowers up to 10cm in size.