Lepanthes semilaminata Luer & Hirtz 1996 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and Flickr Orchid Photo Website

Common Name The Almost Laminate Lepanthes [refers to the incomplete formation of the labellar laminae]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations around 1200 to 1500 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 9 to 11, ciliate lepanthiform sheaths with oblique dilated ostia carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptic, subacute to shortly acuminate, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on a congested, distichous, .6" [1.5 cm] long, successively several flowered inflorescence arising on the top of the leaf with lightly echinate floral bracts.

"Similar to numerous others with a short, congested, distichous raceme borne behind the leaf. The flowers is distinguished by the acute sepals, oblong petals and a suborbicular lip that is incompletely formed into laminae. Thickened margins of the lip below the middle flank the column. Above the middle the lip is entire beneath the column. The bilobed apex is notched with a thin, flabellate appendix in apposition with the stigma. Similar to L focalis but it differs in an entire lip without an appendix." Luer 1996

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

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