Lepanthes muscula Luer & R.Escobar 1983 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Elongatae 1993
Photos by © Alexander Hirtz
Photo by Jay Pfahl
Common Name The Little Mouse Lepanthes [refers to the trilobed appendix]
Flower Size 1/8" [3 mm]
Found in southern Colombia to northern Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations of 2600 to 3600 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphytic orchid with erect, slender to stout ramicauls enveloped by 10 to 14, ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, elliptical ovate, acute, acuminate leaf that is basally cuneate into the petiole and blooms in the winter through spring on a progressively lengthening to 8.8" [to 22 cm] long including the .8" [2 cm] long peduncle, loose, lightly flexuous, racemose, successively 2 to 3, many flowered inflorescence. \Distiguished by the loose, elongated raceme carrying flowers with ovate, acuminate sepals transverse petals with the upper lobe reminiscent of L monitor and an appendix with a terminal pair of lobules similar to that of L hirtzii. The colors of the floral segments vary greatly though its distribution." Luer 1996
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytologia 54:354 Luer 1983; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 5 COS 1994 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Systematics of Draconanthes, Lepanthes subgenus Marsipanthes and subgenus Lepanthes of Ecuador Luer 1996 drawing fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 drawing fide; photo not?;
Checked Luer OK
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