Lepanthes laevis Luer 1999 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and Epidendra Orchid Photo Webpage

LATE

Common Name The Smooth Lepanthes [refers to the sepals, petals and blades of the lip]

Flower Size .12" [3mm]

Found in Chiriqui province of Panama in cloud forests at elevations around 1650 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with slender, erect, ramicauls enveloped by 5 to 6, close fitting, microscopically scabrous, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, suberect, coricaeous, elliptical, slightly concave, acute to narrowly obtuse, cuneate below into the subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in the late spring on a filiform, arising on top of the leaf, congested, 1.4" [3.5 cm] long, successively many flowered inflorescence with an as long as to shorter than the pedicel floral bract.

Related to L fimbriata but differs in the petals and blades of the lip are smooth and totally glabrous as well as the blades of the lip are adherent over the entire length of the column.

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 1999 drawing fide;

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