Lepanthes unijuga Luer & Dalström 1996 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Arethusa and the I Naturalist Website
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name The Pair of Leaflets Lepanthes [refers to the bilobed leaf]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Imbabura province of Ecuador at elevations around 2100 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with a very slender, weak, suberect ramicaul enveloped by 8 to 14, microscopically scabrous lepanthiform sheaths carrying a single, apical, spreading to horizontal , thinly coriaceous, bilobed, cordate apically, abruptly contracted into a linear apical segment, the lobes suborbicular, abruptly acuminate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on a slender, congested, disitchous, to 1.8" [to 4.5 cm] long, successively several flowered inflorescence arising on the top of the leaf.
"The leaves of this species are unique in the Pleurothallidina. Like a two leaves clover, the thin blade is produced into a pair of rounded lobes above the cordate base. Froom incurved margins the apex is abruptly contracted into a very slender segment considerably longer than the basal lobes. As in other leaves of Lepanthes the tip of the apex is three pronged. The ramicauls are very slender. The congested raceme is borne on top of the leaf by a peduncle longer than the basal lobes so that the flowerr is borne about midway along the narrow, apical segment. The sepals are ovate, ciliate and pubescent, the petals are transversely bilobed and the blades of the lip are ovois. The appendix is unusually intricately sculpted with two brush-like segments." Luer 1996
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; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide
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