Lepanthes meleagris Luer & R.Escobar 1994 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Mucronatae Luer 1996
Photos by © Sebastain Moreno and his Flickr Orchid Photo Webpage
Photo by © Agnieszka Chmara and her Flickr Orchid Photo Webpage
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name The Peacock Lepanthes [refers to the colors of the petals]
Flower Size .12" [3mm]
Found in Risaralda department of Colombia in cloud forests at elevations around 2100 to 2430 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with very slender, erect to suberect ramicauls enveloped by 8 to 13, close, ciliate lepanthiform sheaths with long-acuminate apices and carrying a single, apical, suberect, horizontal to drooping, thinly coriaceous, purple suffused, margins sometimes narrowly revolute, ovate, acute, acuminate, rounded to broadly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a filiform, very congested, secund, 1.68 to 2.2" [4.2 to 5.5 cm] long including the .28 to .8" [7 to 20 mm] long peduncle, successively single, many flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf with acuminate, muriculate floral bracts and overlapping pedicels.
"This species, abundant in one area of cloud forest in the Western Cordillera, is closely allied to L. parmata. Vegetatively, both species are distinguished by thin ramicauls, thin, purplish leaves, and a congested inflorescence with long, overlapping pedicels. The flowers of L. parmata are considerably larger, but the lip is considerably smaller than those structures of L. meleagris. The petals of L. meleagris are multicolored with the margins dark purple with a layer of green below. This blends into yellow before the base is suftused with red. The blades of the lips are thin, translucent, and adherent medially over the column. The narrow connectives of L. meleagris originate above the middle, and the body is modified with a wedge-shaped lamina above the external, oblong appendix." Luer & Escobar 1994
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orquideologia Vol 19 #2 1994 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 drawing/photo fide;
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