Lepanthes plumifera Luer 1984 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Juan Sebastian Moreno
Photo by The Storczyki Website
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name The Feather Bearing Lepanthes [refers to the featherlike appendix]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Valle de Cauca Department of Colombia and western Ecuador at elevations around 650 to 1300 meters as a miniature sized, warm growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 6 to 11, tight fitting, microscopically ciliate lepanthiform sheaths carrying a single, apical, suberect, thinly coriaceous, ovate, obtuse to long acuminate, rounded and abruptly contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a filiform, congested, distichous, to .72" [1.8 cm] long, successively many flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf and carrying muricate floral bracts.
"The flowers of this species are very small with broad, denticulate sepals and pointed petals. The narrow blades of the lip hug the column and protrudung free beneath is the feather-like appendix." Luer 1984
Similar to L vespertillo but differs the shorter peduncle and in the large protuberant, fringed appendix.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytologia 55: 190. Luer & Vasquez 1984 Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Systematics of Draconanthes, Lepanthes subgenus Marsipanthes and subgenus Lepanthes of Ecuador Luer 1996 drawing fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide; Orquideas de Farallones de Cali Galindo-Tarazona, Haelterman, Zuluaga Trochez and Sebastian Moreno 2020 photo fide;
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