Lepanthes alopex Luer & Hirtz 1996 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Duane McDowell and his Flickr Orchid Photo website
Photo by Bruno Larsen and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Fox Like Lepanthes [refers to the long-haired, tailike appendix]
Flower Size .12" [3mm]
Found in southeastern Ecuador at elevations around 1600 meters as a miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 6 to 8 close, minutely ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ovate-elliptic, acute, acuminate, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer through fall on a very congested, distichous, filamentous, 1/2" [1.25 cm] long, successively single, few flowered inflorescence.
" The peduncles of L alopex are about as long as the leaves, but the congested, long pedicellate racemes with a small, red-purple flower ususally hang over the margin near the apex in a manner similar to L vespertllo. The most distinguishing feature of L alopex is the long, bushy tailed appendix, reminiscent of the appendix of L alkaia. L alopex differs in the larger habit, longer peduncles and pedicels, and the red entire sepals." 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; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 2 Dodson 2001 drawing fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide
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