Lepanthes speciosa Luer & Hirtz 1992 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Breves Luer 1986 SERIES Breves Luer 1996
Photo by © Duane Mcdowell and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and his The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name The Splendid Lepanthes
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in southern Colombia and Carchi province of Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations around 2050 to 2500 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender, ramicauls enveloped by 7 to 14, microscopically ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths with oblique dilated ostia and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, more or less suffused with purple beneath, elliptical-ovate, acuminate, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a fascile of filiform, loose, distichous, to 3.6" [9 cm] long, successively flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf with 2 to 3 flowers open at any one time and has infundibulbar floral bracts
Similar to L rhynchion and may be a subspecies of but is distinguished by the dilated ostia, a more distantly flowered and longer inflorescence, broadly ovate, obtuse sepals, petals with the upper lobes concave below the middle, and a protruding appendix.
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; Lankesteriana 9(3): 427-429, f. 3A-H. 2010. Pupulin, Bogarin and Sm. drawing/photo fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 drawing/photo fide; Orquideas de Farallones de Cali Galindo-Tarazona, Haelterman, Zuluaga Trochez and Sebastian Moreno 2020 photo fide;
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