Lepanthes pretiosa Luer & Hirtz 2009 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
photo by © Francisco Tobar and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Webpage
Common Name The Precious Lepanthes
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Pichincha province of Ecuador at elevations around 400 meters as a mini-miniature sized, hot growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 5, microscopically ciliate lepanthiform sheaths and carrying erect, thinly coriaceous, green with brown reticulation, broadly elliptical to circular, sinuate margined, rounded apically, rounded and abruptly contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on a subdense, 8.4" [2.1 cm] long, successively single, few flowered inflorescence arising on top of the leaf.
"Lepanthes pretiosa Luer & Hirtz, belongs to an informal group of species from the lowlands of the Pacific Ocean in South America and Panamá, characterized mainly by having heavily reticulate leaves (except for the Panamanian species Lepanthes pantomima Luer & Dressler and its synonym Lepanthes arachnion Luer & Dressler; (Baquero, 2018) with margins undulate, small flowers with caudate petals, lip transversely reniform, oblong, cordate, and without an appendix, connectives and body. Several species, such as lepcalodictyon, Lepanthes microcalodictyon, L. volador Luer & Hirtz, L. barbelifera Luer & Hirtz, L. tentaculata Luer & Hirtz, L. tortuosa Luer & Hirtz, L. bibarbullata Luer, L. saltatrix Luer & Hirtz and the recently described species L. kayii L. Baquero." Baquero, 2018 This one differs in the smaller habit, the non ciliate sepals, petals and lip, the petals with an erect, oblong upper lobe with a retuse tip and a short, rounded lower lobe with a one milimeter-long, process from the inner margin and a bilobed lip with rounded ends.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Luer 2009 Drawing fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
