Lepanthes cassidea Rchb.f. 1856 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photos by © Andreas Kaye and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
Drawing Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name The Helmut Shaped Lepanthes [refers to the concave dorsal sepal]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in western Ecuador at elevations around 900 to 2000 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 5 to 8 microscopically scabrous, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall and spring on a filiform, congested, distichous, 1.8" [4.5 cm] long, successively several flowered, long-pedicellate inflorescence holding the flower near the apex of the leaf.
"Characterized by the elliptical, acute leaves and a short, congested, long-pedicellate raceme held near or slightly beyond the acute leaf apex. The lateral sepals are narrowly acuminate beyond their union. The lobes of the pubescent petals ae oblong. The blades of the lip are narrow along the edges of the short, broad, cuneate connectives and the appendix is small and bifid." 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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