Lepanthes jackinpyxa Luer & Hirtz 1987 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Mucronatae Luer 1996
Photos by © Alexander Hirtz
PEDrawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name The Jack In The Box Lepanthes [refers to the appendix shape and function]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations around 2000 to 2100 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with a erect, slender ramicaul enveloped by 13 to 15, glabrous lepanthiform sheaths with long-acuminate, microscopically scabrous ostia carrying a single, apical, erect, suffused with purple beneath, thinly coriaceous, suborbicular, obtuse, abruptly long acuminate, rounded and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer and fall on a filiform, congested, secund, to 1.8" [to 4.5 cm] long, successively several flowered inflorescence and arising on the back of the leaf.
"Recognized by the orbicular, long-pointed leaves, a short, congested inflorescence, ovate, acute sepals, petals not unlike those of the common L mucronata witha setiform middle lobe and a truncate upper lobe, thin membraneous blades of the lip so thoroughly adnate medially over the column that they cannot be sparated wthout tearing the margins, an ascillating segmented appendix that folds back into a sac in the body of the lip and a pair of long teeth from the apex of the column that protrude beyond the margins of the united blades of the lip." Luer 1996
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Lindleyana 2: 38 Luer & Hirtz 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 fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide
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