Lepanthes aeora Luer & Hirtz 1987 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Elongatae 1993
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra website
Photo by Eric Hunt, plant grown by Dan Newman of Hanging Gardens
Photo by Yéri Dewèvre
Common Name The Swinging Lepanthes [Refers to the appendix of the lip]
Flower Size 3/16" [5 mm]
Found in Ecuador as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte at elevations of 1800 to 1850 meters in cloud forests with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 3 to 4, lepanthiform sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on a congested, 1" [2.5 cm] long, racemose, sequentially flowering inflorescence with a few proportionately large flowers.
"This tiny plant with the oversized flower is similar to L caudata . The sepals however are smooth instwead of denticulate. The appendix is devloped into a peculiar ovid structure suspended by a pair of the fonest spider web-like threadds from a rounded sinus." Luer & Hirtz 19
CAUTION I am not sure about these photo determinations, petals should be a different shape, but this flower in various colors is represented on the net often as this species. The definative factor in this species is the peculiar ovoid structure about .02" [.5 mm] long suspended by a pair of web-like threads and swings loosely beneath the stigma. The Drawing is the type drawing so it is absolutely correct.
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Lindleyana 2: 32 Luer & Hirtz 1987 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Systematics of Draconanthes, Lepanthes subgenus Marsipanthes and subgenus Lepanthes of Ecuador Luer 1996 drawing fide photo hmm; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing hmm
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