Lepanthes magnifica Luer 1983 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by Juan Sebastian Moreno and his Flickr Orchid Photo Webpage
Photo courtesy of Eric Hunt, Plant grown by Dan Newman of Hanging Gardens.
TYPE Drfawing by Carl Luer
Common Name The Grand Lepanthes [Refers to the large plant and flowers]
Flower Size 3/8" [1 cm]
Found in Ecuador in wet cloud forests at elevations of 1450 to 2200 meters as a medium sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with stout, erect ramicauls enveloped by 15 to 19 ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ciliate along veins beneath, ovate, acute, , lightly acuminate leaf with the base rounded to subcordate, contracted into a twisted petiole that blooms in the spring on a shorter than the leaf, congested, distichous, 2 3/4" [7 cm] long, filiform, successively single, many single flowered inflorescence with shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"Recognized by the large size, and large flowers borne ina congested raceme shorter than the leaf. The sepals are white with the apices produced into short tails, the lateral sepals are shortly pubescent, the petals are transversely oblong and the pubescvent appendix is terminated by a diverging pair of lobules." Luer 1996
L magnifica is similar to L lloensis but it has broad sepals, the laterals deeply connate with distant, obtuse apices, petals with falcate lower lobes and sometimes with an attempt to make the upper lobes falcate as well and convex blades of the lip with a tiny filamentaceous appendix. L chrysina has glabrous petals and lip as well as an oblong, membraneous appendix with an apical gland that has a pair of minute finger-like processes.
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytologia 54:351 1983;
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;
Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 photo fide;
Checked Luer 1996 OK
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