Lepanthes megalocephala Luer & R.Vásquez 1984 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes

Photo by © Quintin Lake

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

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Large Head Lepanthes [refers to the proportionally large flower]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in La Paz and Cochabamba departments of Bolivia at elevations around 1300 to 1850 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 4 to 5, microscopically scabrous lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, reticulated purple beneath ovate, subacute, rounded and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late spring and early summer on a filiform, congested, disitchous, .32 to .4" [8 to 10 mm] long including the .12 to .2" [3 to 5 mm] long peduncle, successively single, few flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf and has ciliate floral bracts.

"This tiny species produces on a short peduncle a brightly colored flower as llarge as the reticulated leaf. The sepals are densely ciliate, the narrowly triangular lobes of the petals are pubescent, the linear blades of the lip are long-cilaite and the connectives do not form a body." Luer 1984

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytologia 55: 188. Luer & Vasquez 1984; Orchid Digest Vol 74 #3 2010 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXI Luer 2010 drawing fide;

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