Lepanthes megalostele Luer 1983 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes

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

EARLY THROUGH

Common Name The Large Column Lepanthes

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Napo province Ecuador and La Paz department of Bolivia at elevations around 1000 to 1200 meters as a mini-miniature to miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by to 5 to 8, blackish, tight fitting, microscopically ciliate lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the early summer through fall on a filiform, congested, distichous, 1.2" [3 cm] long, successively flowered inflorescence witha long pedicel and arising on the back of the leaf and carrying echinate floral bracts.

"Recognized by the dark, non-dilated lepanthiform sheaths , elliptical leaves, short, congested, distichous, long-pedicellate racemes, entire, ovate sepals and small blades of the lip flanking a considerably larger column. The appendix is thick and pubescent with an incurved apex." Luer 1996

Synonyms Lepanthes micropogon Luer 1983

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytologia 54:352 Luer 1983; * Phytologia 54:353 Luer 1983 as L micropodgon Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Systematics of Draconanthes, Lepanthes subgenus Marsipanthes and subgenus Lepanthes of Ecuador Luer 1996 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXI Luer 2010 drawing fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide

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