Lepanthes membranacea Luer & Hirtz 2009 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Mucronatae Luer 1996

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and Selbyana 30: 10 Luer & Escobar 2009>

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Membraneous Lepanthes [refers to the protruding rostellum]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations around 1600 meters as a small sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 10 to 13, close, minimally dilated, microscopically ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, thinly coriaceous, erect, ovate, acute, acuminate, rounded and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on an erect, borne beneath the leaf, peduncle 1 to 1.2" [2.5 to 3 cm] long, rachis .4" [1 cm] long, congested, distichous, successively single, many flowered inflorescence with longer than the pedicel floral bracts.

"This species from southeastern Ecuador is known from only the original collection. The habit is similar to many others with a straight ramicaul and a shorter, ovate, acuminate leaf with a short, densely flowered raceme borne beneath. The sepals are glabrous and acute; the upper lobe of the petals is triangular and the lower lobe is narrowly oblong; and the blades of the lip are elliptical and convex. The apex of the column is large with an apical anther which has been shed in the only flower available, leaving a large, membranous, apron-like rostellum forward from the ventral stigma." Luer 2009

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Selbyana 30: 10 Luer & Escobar 2009 Drawing fide; Orchids A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 photo fide;

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