Lepanthes clandestina Luer & Hirtz 1991 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Bilabiatae
Photos by Morley Read and His Nature Photo website
TYPE Photo by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name The Hidden Lepanthes [refers to the inflorescence behind the leaf and the minute lip obscured by the column]
Flower Size 1/4" [7.5mm]
Found in Pastaza province of Ecuador on both sides of the Andes in cloud forests at elevations around 1300 to 2200 meters as a miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 4 to 8, minutely ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly ovate, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring through summer on 1 to 3, filiform, subcongested, .2" to .8" [.5 to 2 cm] long, successively single, few to many flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.
Similar to L columbar but its lip is transversely reniform or broadly cordate without forming blades, although it is vestigal and lacks an appendix
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Systematics of Draconanthes, Lepanthes subgenus Marsipanthes and subgenus Lepanthes of Ecuador Luer 1996 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 2 Dodson 2001 drawing fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide
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