Lepanthes helcium Luer & Hirtz 1984 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
TYPE Photo by Rodrigo Escobar/TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
LATE 
EARLIER 
Common Name The Horse Collar Lepanthes [refers to the "U" shaped lip]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in northwestern Ecuador at elevations around 2300 to 2400 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 10 to 11, minutely ciliate lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, suberect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute to acuminate, cuneate and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and earlier fall on a filiform, congested, lightly flexuous, 1.2 to 1.68" [3 to 4.2 cm] long, successively few flowered inflorescence arising on the top of the leaf and held near the tip of the leaf to beyond.
" Characterized by a red and yellow flower with long-denticulate, lateral sepals that is borne near or past the acuminate tip of the leaf. The petals are very small and reniform. The lip is also reniform with the sides surrounding the column like a collar." Luer 1996
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * AOS Bulletin Vol 53 #11 1984 drawing/photo 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
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