Lepanthes echidion Luer & R.Escobar 1984 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Webpage

LATER EARLY

Common Name The Little Snake Lepanthes [an allusion to the fancied appearance of the flower]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Norte de Santander department of Colombia at elevations around 1880 to 2100 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 3 to 5, ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptic, obtuse to rounded, contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms later spring through early summer on a filiform, loose, to 1.72" [4.3 cm] long including the .54" [1.3 cm] long peduncle, successively single, few several flowered inflorescence that is longer than the leaf and has echinate floral bracts and carrying flowers with red brown sepals with yellow tails, orange petals, and a red lip.

"This tiny species is characterized by the few-flowered raceme twice as long as the little leaves. The caudate sepals are serrulate and echinate along the carinate veins; the petals are transversely bilobed and obtuse; the blades of the lip surpass the short column; and the appendix curves up to associate with the stigma." Luer & Escobar 1984

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Orquideología 16(2): 139 Luer & Escobar 1984 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide; Orchids A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 drawingfide;

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