Lepanthes palaga Luer & R.Escobar 1984 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
TYPE Photo by Rodrigo Escobar/TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Webpage
Photo by © Gilberto Merino and The Tropical Plants from South America Facebook Page
Common Name The Gold Ingot Lepanthes [refers to the yellow orange petals]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Antioquia department of Colombia in cloud forests at elevations around 1850 to 2700 meters as a mini-miniature to miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with erect, very slender ramicauls enveloped by 6 to 12, microscopically scabrous lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, subspreading, coriaceous, ovate, long acuminate, rounded and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter, spring and fall on a filiform, congested, secund, .64 to 1.12" [1.6 to 2.8 cm] long including the .32 to .8" [8 to 20 mm] long peduncle, successively singleto 2, few flowered inflorescence.
Similar vegetatively to L mucronata and has the same habit of having 2 inflorescence one short and one longer on top of the leaf. L palaga has flowers with a proportionally large, pubescent appendix. The petals do not have the middle spike like lobe of the typical L mucronata. The subdense raceme of L planadensis has similar flowers but they are larger and have proportionally larger petals with subequal lobes.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Amer. Orchid Soc. Bull. 53: 604 Luer & Escobar 1984 drawing/photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 drawing/photo fide
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