Lepanthes grossiradix Luer & Hirtz 1993 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Breves Luer 1986 SERIES Breves Luer 1996

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

Common Name The Thick Root Lepanthes

Flower Size .08" [2 mm]

Found in El Oro province of Ecuador at elevations around 2250 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with thick purple roots and an erect, slender ramicaul enveloped by 6 to 8, ciliate lepanthiform sheaths with dilated ostia and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, purple suffused, elliptical-ovate, acute, slightly acuminate cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a slender, loose, distichous to 2.4" [6 cm] long, successively single, many flowered inflorescence.

"Distinguished by the very thick roots and loosely flowered racemes that begin much shorter than the leaf but eventually lengthen to about twice the length of the leaf. The sepals are acute and sparsely ciliate, the laterals single veined. The lobes of the lip are lunate and surrounding the apex of the column with a dorsal anther and an apical stigma. The appendix is a minute, oblong structure with a cleft down the center." Luer 1996

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Novon 3: 449 Luer 1993 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Luer 1996 drawing fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide

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