Lepanthes conjuncta Luer & Hirtz 1987 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Joined Lepanthes [refers to the meeting of the blades of the lip over the column]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations around 2450 to 2700 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 7 to 12, glabrous to microscopically scabrous, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ovate, acute to acuminate, rounded and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer through early fall on a filiform, very congested, distichous, 1.16" [2.9 cm] long, successively single, many flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.

"Characterized by the weak, slender ramicauls that bear thin, elliptical ovate leaveswith a long acuminate apex. The flowers are ditinguished by the broad sepals, pubescent petals and thin elliptical lobes of the lip densely fused over the column. This adherence is seen in L mucronata and other releated species, but in the case of L conjuncta the union is so solid that the blades must be cut or torn apart to expose the column." Luer 1996

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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