Lepanthes delhierroi Luer & Hirtz 1993 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Elongatae 1993
Photo by © Jay Pfahl
Photo by Wiel Driessen and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
Photo by Patricia Harding
Photo by Rudolf Jenny
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name Del Hierro's Lepanthes [Ecuadorian discoverer of species 20th cen.]
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations of 1400 to 2400 meters as a miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 5 to 7 lepanthiform sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse leaf with the base cuneate into the petiole and the undersides flushed with purple, that blooms in the spring with a 2 to 2.4" [5 to 6 cm] long, erect-arcuate, distichous, terminal, successively few flowered inflorescence with more than one relatively large flower at a time held well above the leaves.
"Distinguished by the loose, flexible, successively few flowered raceme much longer than the elliptical leaf. The large red flower with yellow veins is characterized by broad, concave sepals that are abruptly acuminate into short tails. The petals are red and bilobed. The blades of the lip are red and longitudinally callous towards the base. Most remarkable is the membraneous, sling-like appendix with a knob-like apex that holds a long, curved process that descends from the stigma. A form with narrower sepals occurs in its southern range. In habit this species is similar to L capitana and L effusa but L delheiroi is distinguished by the long-acuminate apices of the sepals, simple petals, blades of the lip with everted apices and with an involute appendix with a minute, two horned gland at the apex." Luer 1996
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Novon 3: 445 Luer 1993 drawing fide;
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 photo fide;
AOS Bulletin Vol 75 No 5 2006 photo 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;
This one checks out
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