Lepanthes flexuosa Luer 1983 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Breves SERIES Filamentosae

TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer © and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Common Name The Flexuous Lepanthes [refers to the inflorescence]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in southeastern Ecuador on the eastern slopes of the Andes at elevations around 2100 to 3300 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with an erect to suberect, stout ramicaul enveloped by 3 to 4, scabrous lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, sometimes purple beneath, elliptical, obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a comparatively stout, progressively lengthening, flexuous, to 3.6" [9 cm] long, successively several flowered inflorescence with echinate floral bracts.

"Distinguished by the small habit, a comparitively stout, flexuous raceme considerably longer than the leaf, spiculate sepals, the laterals single veined, a comparitively large,lip with blunt apices curved beneath the column and an external, oblong appendix connate to the body for nearly the entire length." Luer 1996

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytologia 54:343 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

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