Lepanthes adelphe Luer & Hirtz 1996 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Breves Luer 1986 SERIES Breves Luer 1996
Photos by © Alfonso Doucette
Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Sister Lepanthes [refers to its similarity to L otara]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Pastaza, Loja and Zamora-Chinchipe provinces of Ecuador at elevations around 2000 to 3100 meters as a miniature to small sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 6 to 11, microscopically scabrous, lepanthiform sheaths with ciliate ostia and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly ovate, acute, more or less suffused with purple beneath, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on a filiform, subdense, distichous, to 1.4" [3.5 cm] long, successively single, many flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.
Similar to L otara but L adelphe differs in the narrowly ovate acute leaf, the short subdense inflorescence that is half the length of the leaf. The petals lack the marginal angle seen in L otara and the lip blades are covered by prominent papillar cells.
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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
