Lepanthes skeleton Luer & R.Escobar 1984 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Mucronatae Luer 1996
Photos by © Andres Posada and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation a the Jany Renz Herbarium Website
Common Name The Skeleton Lepanthes [refers to the long pedicellate racemes]
Flower Size .12” [3 mm]
Found in Antioquia department of Colombia at elevations around 1850 to 2700 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with very slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 10 to 13, nearly glabrous lepanthiform sheaths with dilated ostia and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, reticulate beneath, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter and spring on a filiform, congested, distichous, long-pedicellate, to .6 to .8” [1.5 to 2 cm] long including the .4 to 6” [1 to 1.5 cm] long peduncle, successively single, many flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf with sparsely spiculate floral bracts.
There are four Colombian species with similar filiform segments to the petals, L aguirre differs in its larger flower size and caudate sepals, L hexapus differs in its wider ovate leaves and a lip with a much shorter, ovoid appendix and similar to L heptapus but L skeleton differs in the broader leaves, very long pedicellate, disitichous racemes, almost completely connate lateral sepals and a lip with a thick appendix shorter than the blades.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Amer. Orchid Soc. Bull. 53: 722 Luer & Escobar 1984 drawing/photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide; Orchids A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 photo fide;
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