Lepanthes scrotifera Luer & Hirtz 1996 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Alexander Hirtz
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and Flickr Orchid Photo Website
Common Name The Scrotum Bearing Lepanthes [refers to the pubescent lip]
Flower Size .24" [6 mm]
Found in Esmeraldas province of Ecuador at elevations around 750 to 800 meters as a mini-miniature sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 7 to 9, minutely ciliate lepanthiform sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, purple-suffused beneath, coriaceous, ovate, acute, cuneate and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on a filiform, congested, secund, to .5 to .68" [1.2 to 1.7 cm] long, successively several flowered inflorescence arising on the top of the leaf with lightly echinate floral bracts.
"Easily identified by the congested raceme borne near the apex of the little ovate leaf by a long, slender peduncle, narrowly triangular, widely spread sepals, minute, long-pubescent petals and a tiny lip appressed to the undersurface of a much larger, and twice longer column that protrudes from the center of the flower. The apex of the lip is bilobed, with the lobes suborbicular, concave and long-pubescent, embracing the middle of the column. Above the base externally is a ligulate, long-pubescnt callus, undoubtedly analogous to the appendix of other species." Luer 1996
Lepanthes scrotifera resembles the the Ecuadorian species Lepanthes pelorostele and L rigidigitata, the Colombian species L abortiva, L vargasii, L eros, L isoceles, L micellilabia and L niphas and the Costa Rican Lepanthes equus-frisiae, L posthon, L spadariae and L vestgialis.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *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; Lankesteriana 17: 227 Moreno Vieira & Karremans 2017 drawing fide;
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