Lepanthes imitator Luer & Hirtz 1996 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes 1993

Side View of Flower Photo by © Alexander Hirtz

Lip Detail Photo by © Bruno Larsen and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website

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

Common Name The Imitating Lepanthes [refers to its similarity to L monitor]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in southeastern Ecuador at elevations around 2150 to 2480 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 8 to 10, minutely ciliate lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, elliptical-ovate, subacute to shortly acuminate, rounded and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a slender, congested, distichous, 1.32" [3.3 cm] long, successively many flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Luer 1996 drawing fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 86 #4 2017 photo fide;

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