Lepanthes illex Luer 1983 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Elongatae 1993
Photos by © Sebastian Moreno and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
LATE 
EARLIER 
Common Name The Seductive Lepanthes [refers to the presumed attractive function of the appendix]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in southern Colombia and northern Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations of 3200 to 3400 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with a stout, erect ramicaul enveloped by 7 to 16, glabrous to microscopically scabrous lepanthiform sheaths that are minimally dilated at the orifice and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, veined, narrowly elliptical, acute to acuminate, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and earlier fall on a filiform, sublax, to 1.4" [to 3.5 cm] long, successively single, several flowered inflorescence with echinate floral bracts.
"This robust species is identified by the large habit, bilabiate flowers borne by a sublax raceme equaling to surpassing the acuminate leaf in length with small transverse petals and a lip with convex lobes and a pedunculate, pubescent appendix." Luer 1996
Most similar to L amplisepala but this one has a caespitose plant habit and has flowers with the lip with glabrous blades and an ovate, pedunculate appendix.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytologia 54:347 1983, 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; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
