Lepanthes menatoi Luer & R.Vásquez 1984 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Lourens Grobler
TYPE drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name Menato's Lepanthes [Bolivian discoverer of species]
Flower Size .1" [2 mm]
Found in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia on the eastern slopes of the Andes at elevations around 1500 to 3000 meters as a medium sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped basally by 10 to 15, ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, purple suffused, elliptical-ovate, obtuse, shortly acuminate, rounded basally and contracted abruptly into the twisted petiolate base leaf that blooms at most any time of the year on a filiform, behind the leaf, to .6 to 1.4" [1.5 to 3.5 cm] long peduncle congested, distichous, to 2.4" [6 cm] long, successively single, many flowered inflorescence with as long as to longer than the pedicel floral bracts.
"Recognized by the usually robust, large size with a broad, shortly acuminate leaf with a congested raceme borne along the back of the leaf. The sepals are subacute, the upper lobe of the petals is oblong and truncate and the lower lobe is narrowly triangular. Most disinctive are the oblong, curved blades of the lip that are long-ciliate along the inner margins creating a feathery roof over the column." Luer 1996
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Lankester's Epidendra Website CR;
* Phytologia 55: 188. Luer & Vasquez 1984;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Systematics of Draconanthes, Lepanthes subgenus Marsipanthes and subgenus Lepanthes of Ecuador Luer 1996 drawing fide;
Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXI Luer 2010 drawing fide;
Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide;
Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 photo fide;
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