Lepanthes quaternaria Luer 1983 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Alexander Hirtz
Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
EARLY 
Common Name The Quartet Lepanthes [refers to the lobes of the lip]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in west central Ecuador at elevations around 2050 to 3100 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 12 to 15, close, glabrous to microscopically scabrous lepanthiform sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, oblong, long-acuminate to acute, rounded and abruptly contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on 2 to 8 congested, distichous, to 1 to 1.6" [4 cm] long, successively flowered inflorescence held in a fascile and arising on the back of the leaf.
"Distinguished by the congested, distichous raceme shorter thant eh leaf with a long-acuminate apec, ovate, acute sepals, transversely oblong petals and a distinctive lip with thick blades, thick connectives and a thick body with a pair of thick, antherior protuberances, one to either side of the minute appendix." Luer 1996
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytologia 54: 367 Luer 1983; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Systematics of Draconanthes, Lepanthes subgenus Marsipanthes and subgenus Lepanthes of Ecuador Luer 1996 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 2 Dodson 2001 photo 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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