Lepanthes kayi Baquero 2018 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Andreas Kay
TYPE Drawing © Luis Baquero and A new species of Lepanthes (Orchidaceae: Pleurothallidinae) from northwestern Ecuador March 2018
Common Name Kay's Lepanthes [Andreas Kay Ecuadorian Biologist, Photographer and Orchid Enthusiast passed 2019]
Flower Size .24" [6 mm]
Found in Carchi province of Ecuador in a remnant of tropical forest next to a small stream at elevations around 850 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 5 to 6, minutely ciliate lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, green with dull red brown reticulation, cordate, margins undulate leaf that blooms on a descending, arising on top of the leaf, peduncle filiform, .12 to .28" [3 to 7 mm] long, rachis .4" [1 cm] long, congested, distichous, successively single, several flowered inflorescence with half as long as the pedicel floral bracts.
"Lepanthes kayi is similar to Lepanthes saltatrix in habit and flowers but differs in the smaller plants and heavily undulate margins of the leaves versus bigger plants and lightly to absent undulation of the leaf margins in the later, the three-lobed lip and the oblong oblique lower lobe of the petals versus the transversely ovate lower lobe of the petals and the bilobed, shallowly retuse lip in L. saltatrix. Baquero 2018
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytotaxa 343: 76 2018 A new species of Lepanthes (Orchidaceae: Pleurothallidinae) from northwestern Ecuador Baquero 2018 drawing/photos fide
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