Lepanthes rigidigitata Luer & Hirtz 2004
SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Elongatae 1993
Photo by © Andreas Kay and his Flickr Orchid photo Website
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and the Epidendra Orchid Website
Common Name The Rigid Fingered Lepanthes [refers to the erect column]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations around 1500 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cool growing, proliferating epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 4 to 6, ribbed, minutely ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths with thick, minutely ciliate margins and carrying a single, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late fall on a lax, flexuous, 5.6" [14 cm] long, successively single, many flowered inflorescence with sparsely echinate floral bracts.
Similar to L micellilabia but it has a short, congested racemose inflorescence and L isoceles but it has a long pendent racemose inflorescence. The others in this similar group of flowers with very reduced petals and lip is L vestigitalis and L abortiva.
"Lepanthes rigidigitata with its narrowly triangular-lanceolate sepals, trilobed petals, and lip connate close to the apex of a terete, protruding column to close to the apex resembles the Ecuadorian species, Lepanthes equus-frisiae, Lepanthes pelorostele and L scrotifera, the Colombian species L abortiva, L vargasii, L eros, L isoceles, L micellilabia and L niphas and the Costa Rican L posthon, L spadariae and L vestgialis.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Pleurothallis subgenus Acianthera and Three Allied subgenera, A Second Century of new Species of Stelis of Ecuador, Epibator, Ophidion and Zootrophion Luer 2004 drawing fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide; Lankesteriana 17: 227 Moreno Vieira & Karremans 2017 drawing fide;
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