Lepanthes hydrae Luer & L.Jost 1999 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Close up of appendix notice hydra like growth at bottom right hence the name
Photo by © Lou Jost/TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer and Epidendra Orchid Photo Webpage
Common Name The Hydra Lepanthes [a genus of minute, hydrozoan polyps]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Tungurahua province of Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations around 2700 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with slender, erect, ramicauls enveloped by 6 to 7, minutely ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coricaeous, elliptical, acute, acuminate, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on a slender, arising from behind the leaf, distichous, congested, 1.4" [3.5 cm] long, successively many flowered inflorescence with a shorter than the pediecl floral bract .
"Characterized by the small acuminate leaf with a distinct petiole and longer than the congested inflorescence. The sepals are acute with the laterals barely connate basally. The petals are triangular, the upper acute, the lower obtuse. The blades of the lip are ovate with acute tips curviong beneath the column. The appendix is a minute, cilate, pedunculated structure that resembles a frehwater hydra." Luer 1999
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVIII Systematics of Pleurothallis subsection Antenniferae, Longiracemosae, Macrophyllae-Racemosae and Subgenera Pseudsostelis and Acuminata Luer 1999drawing fide;; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide
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