Lepanthes hirsutula Luer & Hirtz 1987 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Lourens Grobler
TYPE drawing by © Carl Luer
LATE
Common Name The Hairy Lepanthes
Flower Size .25" [7 mm]
Found in northwestern Ecuador in wet cloud forests at elevations of 750 to 1300 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with erect to suberect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 5 to 8, ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, purple suffused beneath, narrowly ovate, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in late winter and spring on a few, 1" [2.5 cm] long, congested, distichous, successively several flowered, racemose inflorescence that is shorter to as long as the leaf, carrying a single flower.
"Distinguished by the small habit with very narrowly ovate leaves and a shorter raceme borne along the dorsal surface of the leaf. The sepals are ovate, acuminate and denticulate, the petals are transversely oblong and long-pubescent and the blades of the lip are elliptical and also pubescent. The connectives are exceptionally broad, with a broad, rounded, protuberant, pubescent body without an appendix." Luer 1996
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Lindleyana 2: 135. Luer 1987 drawing fide; 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; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide; Orchids A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019;
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