Lepanthes esmeralda Luer & Hirtz 1992 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Alexander Hirtz
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Original Drawing by © Padre Pedro Ortiz Conserved at the Herbario de la Universidad Javeriana Bogota Colombia
Common Name The Emerald Lepanthes [refers to the province in Ecuador where it is found as well as the emerald petals]
Flower Size 1/5" [5mm]
Found in Esmeraldas province Ecuador in wet montane cloud forests at elevations around 750 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped basally by 5 to 7 microscopically ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths and carries a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ovate, acute, cuneate and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that have a purple hue on the underside and blooms on a dense, distichous, 1.2" [3 cm] long, successively many flowered, racmose inflorescence that is shorter than the leaf and arising on the underside of the leaf.
"Easily recognized by the very broad, oblique, shortly acuminate lateral sepals, the large bright emerald green petals and an emerald green lip with oblong blades, red along the inner border and adherent over the column. The body of the lip is protuberant with a small, bifid appendix." Luer 1996
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
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 drawing/photo fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide
Checked Luer OK
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