Lepanthes scalaris Luer 1983 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Elongatae 1993
Photo by Gast [Christian] and Orchideen Forum Germany Website
TYPE drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name or Meaning The Ladder-Like Lepanthes [refers to the plants habit of growing another ramicaul out of the apex of another]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in southern Colombia and northern Ecuador in scrub cloud forests at elevations aound 3200 to 3400 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 5 to 7, close, lepanthiform sheaths with minutely ciliate ostia and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall and winter on a filiform, loose, to 2/8" [to 7 cm] long including the 1.2” [3 cm] long peduncle, successively many flowered inflorescence.
This species has a habit of growing another ramicaul out of the apex of an older mature ramicaul and has an inflorescence that well exceeds the length of the leaves, the sepals are shortly acuminate, the petals are oblong and obtuse and the blasdes of the lip are ovate and obtuse. The appendix, hinged in the sinus is globular and cancave with marginal tufts of hair." Luer 1996 .
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytologia 54: 369 Luer 1983; 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; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 drawing good
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