Lepanthes elephantina Luer & R.Escobar 1984 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photos by © Sebastian Moreno and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name The Elephant-Like Lepanthes [refers to the tusk-like blades of the lip]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in southwestern Colmbia to northern Ecuador at elevations around 3000 to 3500 meters as a mini-miniature to miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with a stout, erect ramicaul enveloped by 7 to 12, minutely ciliate lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, purple suffused beneath, elliptical, obtuse and contracted into a narrow apical segment, rounded and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on a slender, congested, distichous, to 2" [ 5 cm] long, successively many flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.
"The purple, elliptical leaves of this colorful species are abruptly contracted into a narrow, apical segment; the purple sepals edged in yellow are denticulate; the upper lobe of the petals is long and protruding, the lower lobe, very short; the narrow apices of the acuminate blades of the lip curve upward like a pair of tiny tusks." Luer & Escobar 1984
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Orquideología 16(2): 141. 1984 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; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide; Orchids A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 drawing/photo fide;
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