Lepanthes maxima Salazar & Soto Arenas 1996 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo courtesy of Noble Bashor
TYPE Drawing by Salazar & Soto and El Genero Lepanthes Sw. En Mexico Salazar & Soto 1996
Common Name The Very Large Lepanthes [refers to the large flowers compared to other Mexican Lepanthes]
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Pictured species - Chiapas Mx., 1280m elev., Montebello Lake area, on branches of small tree.
Found in Chiapas state of Mexico and Guatemala in perennial rainforest and pine forests at elevations of 1350 to 1600 meters as a miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with erect to ascending, slender ramicauls completely enveloped by 5 to 6 lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, elliptic to ovate, obtuse to rounded, fleshy coriaceous, tridenticulate, gradually narrowing below into the cuneate and shortly petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter and summer on to 3 per ramicaul, but only one flowering at a time, lateral, longer than the leaf, to 1" to 1.8" [2.5 to .3.75 cm] long, filiform, terete, subdistichous, sinuous, lax, successively single flowered inflorescence arising from the apex of the ramicaul with up to 5 flowers.
"Lepanthes maxima has the largerst flowers of Lepanthes in Mexico up to .88" [2.2 cm] tall. The species is recognized by the elliptic-obovate leaves, the synsepal proiportionally larger and narrower, the lateral sepals oblong-lanceolate, obtuse and subtruncate, the lower lobe of the petals is triangular-linear, acuminate and the laminae of the lip obscure the column other than the anther.
"Part of the L guatemalensis alliance and very similar to L horridafrom Costa Rica with a narrower leaf, ramicauls with 4 to 12 lepanthiform sheaths, paler colored flowers, and the petals and lip of a different shape. The leapanthiform sheaths and floral bracts are conspicuously and densely hispid-spiny and the rachis of the inflorescence is much more congested." Salazar & Soto 1996
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI * El Genero Lepanthes Sw. En Mexico Salazar & Soto 1996 drawing/photo fide; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018
Checked Drawing Hagsater OK
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