Lepanthes nephridia Luer & Hirtz 2012 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Plant and Flower Photos by © Alexander Hirtz
TYPE Drawing TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Kidney Lepanthes [refers to the shape of the labellum]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations around 2500 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 10 minutely ciliate lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, horizontal, decurving, coriaceous, elliptical-ovate when expanded, acute, slightly acuminate, with the tip distinctly tridentate, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on an arching, from the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle .16 to .4" [4 to 10 mm] long, held above the dorsum of the leaf, rachis to .4" [10 mm] long, congested, distichous, successively single, many flowered inflorescence with shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"This species is characterized by a more or less horizontal and decurving leaf, above which the flower is held by an erect peduncle. The dorsal sepal with an acuminate tip curves forward above the minute central apparatus, Most distinctive is the pair of reniform lobes of the lip." Luer 2012
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Harvard Papers in Botany, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 333 to 368 2012 MISCELLANEOUS NEW SPECIES IN THE PLEUROTHALLIDINAE (ORCHIDACEAE) Carlyle A. Luer drawing fide
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