Lepanthes chrysina Luer & Hirtz 1987 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photos by © Milan Vágner
TYPE drawing by © Carl Luer
LATE
Common Name The Gold Lepanthes [refers to the flower color as well as the nearby gold mines]
Flower Size .15" [3mm]
Found in central Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations of 1250 to 1800 meters as a small sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by 12 to 20, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, ovate, acute, acuminate, rounded and contracted into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late winter and spring on the back of the leaf, with a slender, 2" [5 cm] long, congested, successively many flowered, racemose inflorescence.
Similar to L lloensis and L magnifica but this one has glabrous petals and lip as well as an oblong, membraneous appendix with an apical gland that has a pair of minute finger-like processes. The appendix is similar to the much smaller L intricata.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Lindleyana 2: 128. Luer 1987 drawing fide; 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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