Lepanthes biloba Lindl. 1836 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Elongatae 1993
Photo by Wiel Driessen and his Facebook Page
Photo by Ecuagenera and their Ecuador Orchid Website
drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name or Meaning The Two Lobed Lepanthes [refers to the lip]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Colombia and western Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations around 2100 to 3600 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with slender to stout, erect ramicauls enveloped by 5 to 17, minutely ciliate-scabrous lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, elliptical-oblong to elliptical ovate, acute to obtuse, shortly or slightly acuminate, cuneate below and contracted into the petiolate base leaf that blooms at any time of the year on a slender, distichous, to 1.6" [to 4 cm] long, filiform, successively many flowered, racemose inflorescence arising from behind the leaf.
"Variable bot vegetatively and florally. The inflorescence of Lindley's type is incompletely developed, being no longer than the leaf. The shape of the leaf varies from oblong and obtuse to ovate and acute with all the intermediate shapes found all through the distribution. Some forms grade into L elongata. The loose flexuous racemes sometimes begin flowering shorter than the leaf but continue lengthening to far surpass the leaf. The flowers are small, bilabiate and variable in color, but often yellow, with small red to purple petals and lip. The degree of pubescence of the petals and lip varies. The lobes of the petals are triangular, but often the apices are acuminate. The body of the lip is broad and connate to the column near the base. The appendix is small, pubescent and oblong with the tip rounded but sometimes bilobed. L oxypetala is similar but distinct with its long-acuminate petals as well as the lip attached to the slender shaft of the column above the middle." Luer 1996
Checked type drawing W3 Tropicos OK
Synonyms Lepanthes metaxy Luer & Hirtz 1991; Lepanthes otostalix Rchb.f. 1855; Lepanthes peniculus Luer 1983
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Xenia Orchidaceae Rchb.f 1854 as L otostalix drawing fide; Bonplandia Rchb.f 1855 as L otostalix; Xenia Orchidaceae Rchb.f 1855; Phytologia 54: 362 Luer 1983 as L peniculus; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 5 COS 1994 photo ok; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Systematics of Draconanthes, Lepanthes subgenus Marsipanthes and subgenus Lepanthes of Ecuador Luer 1996 drawing fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXI1 2012 drawing fide; Orchids A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 photo fide;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
