Lepanthes neillii L.Jost 2004 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Elongatae 1993
Photos by © Andreas Kaye and his Flickr Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by © Lou Jost
Common Name Neill's Lepanthes [American Dr. David Neill, Director of the Herbario Nacional del Ecuador, and leader of its Cordillera del Condor expeditions current]
Flower Size .;24" [6 mm]
Found in Morona Santiago province of Ecuador as a mini-miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 4 to 8, tight, ciliate, purple becoming tan with age lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, elliptical, acute, tapering into the contracted, petioalte base leaf that blooms in the fall on a erect to suberect, arising on the bottom of the leaf, to 1.2" [3 cm] long, peduncle, minute, loose, lightly flexuous, successively single, 2 to 10 flowered inflorescence with just shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"This species from a white sand region of the Cordillera del Condor is easily distinguished from all other Ecuadorian species (Luer 1996, 1998a, 1998b, 1999, 2000, 2002) by the combination of the loose inflorescence, ornately crested column and ovary, broad wing-like blades of the lip, and long sepaline tails. It appears to have no close relatives. Only one plant was found in spite of extensive searching; it was flowered in cultivation." Jost 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Selbyana 25: 14 Luer & Jost 2004 Drawing fide New Pleurothallid Orchids from the Cordillera del Condor of Ecuador Drawing/ photo fide
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
