Lepanthes deleastes Luer 1983 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photos by Andreas Kay and his Flickr Ecuador Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name or MeaningThe Baiter Lepanthes [alluding to the presumed function of the appendix]
Flower Size .2" [3 cm]
Found in southern Ecuador in wet and cloud forests on the eastern slopes at elevations of 1000 to 2400 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 6 to 13 close, minutely ciliate lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, reticulated with purple beneath, ovate, acute to shortly acuminate, the rounded base abruptly contracted into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter and spring on a congested, distichous, 3/4" [2.2 cm] long, successively single, several flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.
"One of several species characterized by a purple dorsal sepal with yellow to green margins. The congested racemes are shorter than the ovate leaves, the ovate sepals are minutely denticulate, the petals are broadly transversely oblong and the connectives of the lip are very short with a pubescent, segmented appendix in between." Luer 1996
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytologia 54:339 Luer 1983; 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; Orchids A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 photo fide
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