Lepanthes quetzalensis Luer & Béhar 1990 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Mario Velasquez and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
Photos by © Edgar Alfredo Mo'Mo'
Common Name The Quetzal Lepanthes [Quetzal Preserve between Cobán and Union barrios in Guatemala]
Flower Size .15" [3mm]
Found in Baja Verapaz department of Guatemala in montane forests at elevations around 1600 meters as a miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped by lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single apical, erect, suborbicular, rounded and denticulate apically, abruptly narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on 1 to 4, distichous, congested, .75" to 1" [2 to 2.5 cm] long, succcessively single, many flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.
"Most distinctive ids the incrved, hooklike, ciliate apices of the blades of the lip. The longpubescent appendix is located on the external surface of the body." Luer & Behar 1990
Often cited as a synonym of L scopula but differs in the much more distichous inflorescence the wider at one end lip shape and colors of the sepals and petals, as well as earlier bloom time.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Lindleyana 5: 194 Luer & Béhar 1990 and The AOS Webpage drawing fide; Orquidea Mex Vol 14 El Genero Lepanthes en Mexico Salazar & Soto 1996; Lepanthes de Guatemala Archila 2001 drawing/photo fide; Diversity of Pleurothallidinae in Guatemala: An Endangered Orchid Subtribe with High Economic and Horticultural Potentials Edgar Mo Mo, Cetzal, Basu and Vega 2017 photo fide; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018
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