Lepanthes osiris Luer & R.Escobar 1994 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Breves Luer 1986 SERIES Breves Luer 1996
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Webpage
Common Name The Osiris Lepanthes [refers to the horn-like petals reminiscent of bull's horns that commonly adorn the headress of the Egyptian God Osiris]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Cauca department of Colombia in cloud forests at elevations around 3380 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, stout, prolific ramicauls enveloped by 5 to 7, minutely ciliate lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a very loose, strict, 11.2 to 11.6" [28 to 29 cm] long including the 1.2 to 1.6" [3 to 4 cm] long peduncle, successively single, several flowered inflorescence arising on the top of the leaf with oblique floral bracts.
"This species is apparently confined to the cool, moist, scrubby forests of the Páramo de las Delicias in southern Colombia. Although vegelalively of moderate size, the habit is long-scandent. A gradually lengthening, distantly flowered raceme of relatively large flowers eventually far surpasses the leaf. The flowers are most remarkable for the curved, hornlike upper lobes of the petals. The bilid synsepal is similar to the ovate, lightly acuminate dorsal sepaal. The blades of the lip are narrowly oblong. The tip of the appendix is minutely bifid." Luer & Escobar 1994
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Orquideologia Vol 19 #2 pg 103 Luer & Escobar 1994 Drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 drawing fide;
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