Lepanthes gaileana Luer & Hirtz 1996 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Elongatae 1993
Photo by © Alexander Hirtz
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name Gail's Lepanthes [American Orchid Enthusiast and Lepanthes Lover current]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in southeastern Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations around 2500 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 5 to 6, minutely ciliate-scabrous lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, cuneate and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on a filiform, loose, to 2.4" [to 6 cm] long, successively single, several flowered inflorescence with minutely muricate floral bracts.
"Similar to the Colombian L chelonion but is easily distinguished by the prominently erose margins of the sepals. In habit the plant is small, with a loose, successively flowered raceme far surpassing the elliptical leaf. The dark red sepals are deeply connate into a gaping cup with markedly erose margins and slender tails. The olive green petals are transversely oblong and the flat oblong blades of the lip are also olive green. The appendix is thick, oblong and pubescent with a glabrous, apical, bilobulate gland." 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 photo fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide
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