Lepanthes nivea Luer 1983 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Carlo Balistrieri
Photo by © Alexander Hirtz
Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
LATE 
Common Name The Snow White Lepanthes [refers to the flower color]
Flower Size 1/2" [1.25 cm]
Found in southeastern Ecuador at elevations around 2600 to 2800 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphyte with a slender, suberect to horizontal ramicaul enveloped by 12 to 17, microscopically ciliate lepanthiform sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, purple beneath oblong-ovate, acuminate to acute, rounded and abruptly contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on a filiform, congested, subsecund, 2.4" [6 cm] long, successively flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.
"Recognized by the slender ramicauls bearing thin leaves suffused with purple. Against the purple the comparitively large snow white flower is boene in a congested raceme. The sepals are minutely pubescent and caudate, the petals are small and the appendixos minute witha terminal, tufted segment." Luer 1996
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytologia 54: 356 Luer 1983; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Systematics of Draconanthes, Lepanthes subgenus Marsipanthes and subgenus Lepanthes of Ecuador Luer 1996 drawing fide; Orchid Digest Vol 62 #2 1998 photo fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 2 Dodson 2001 photo fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide
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