Lepanthes nummularia Rchb.f. 1856 SUBGENUS Brachycladium SECTION Brachycladae type species for the subgenus
Photos by © Rudy Gellis and the I Naturalist Website
Photo by © Socrates Forrero
Photo by Jay Pfahl ©
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name or Meaning The Small Coin Lepanthes [refers to the habit]
Flower Size .15" [3mm]
Found in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru in cloud forests at elevations aound 1600 to 2450 meters as a medium sized, cool to cold, pendant growing epiphyte with a pendant chain of leaves with an abbreviated ramicaul enveloped by one pubescent sheath and carrying a single, apical, descending, coriaceous, glabrous, elliptical to broadly elliptical to suborbicular, subacute to obtuse, the base contracted into a short petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring and summer on a congested, successively several flowered, racemose, to .2" [5mm] long inflorescence arising on top of the leaf.
This species can be quite variable in the structure of all parts of the flower as well as flower color, the constant factor overall is a wide protruding column with wings that surround the pollinaria. With time and more reearch this species concept may become a series of species.
Synonyms Andinia nummularia (Rchb.f.) Karremans & S.V.Uribe 2017; Brachycladium nummularium (Rchb.f.) Luer 2005; Lepanthes ospinae Garay 1969; Lepanthes polygonoides L.B.Sm. & S.K.Harris 1934; Oreophilus nummularius (Rchb.f.) Archila 2009; Neooreophilus nummularius (Rchb.f.) Archila 2009; Penducella nummularia (Rchb.f.) Luer 2010
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Xenia Orchidaceae Rchb.f 1855; Fieldiana, First supplement to the Orchids of Peru. Schweinfurth 1970; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XI Luer 1994 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVII Dryadella and Acronia section Macrophyllae-Fasiculatae Luer 2005 as Brachycladium nummularium; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Selbyana 29(2): 202-8 Archila 2009 as Oreophila nummularia; Orchid Digest 74(2): 69 Luer 2010 as Penducella nummularia drawing/photo fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 as Penducella nummularia drawing fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 82 #12 2013 photo fide; Pleurothallids Neotropical Jewels Vol 1 Karremans & Viera 2020 as Andinia nummularia photo fide; Orquideas de Farallones de Cali Galindo-Tarazona, Haelterman, Zuluaga Trochez and Sebastian Moreno 2020 as Andinia nummularia photo fide
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