Lepanthes necopina Luer & Hirtz 1987 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photos by © Alexander Hirtz
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
LATE 
Common Name The Unexpected Lepanthes [refers to the unusual column]
Flower Size .08" [2 mm]
Found in southeastern Ecuador at elevations around 2200 to 3000 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 6 to 9, ciliate lepanthiform sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ovate, subacute, rounded and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and fall on a filiform, congested, distichous, .68" [1.7 cm] long, successively several flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf and carrying microscopically sparsely spiculate floral bracts.
"Related to the much larger Central American L mystax as both have a row of long, stiff cilia along the anterior margin of the blades of the lip. The underlying column is most remarkable in that the receptive surfaces of the bilobed stigm curve aroundd and over the dorsal anther. The rostellum, upon which the anther rests, is thick, oblong, channeled and pubescent with a terminal triangular gland, very similar in appearance of many appndicex of other speies. The appendix of L necopina is a minute structure, apparently vestigal, away form the area of expected pollination activity." Luer 1996
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Lindleyana 2: 42 Luer & Hirtz 1987 Drawing fide 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 photo fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide
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