Lepanthes spruceana L.Jost & Luer 2005 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes

Photo by © Lou Jost

TYPE Drawing TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

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Common Name Spruce's Lepanthes [English bryobotanist current]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Tungurahua province of Ecuador at elevations around 2000 to 2300 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with a slender, pendent ramicaul enveloped by 7 to 11, scabrous-ciliate, tan lepanthiform sheaths with much dilated ostia carrying a single, apical, erect in respect to the ramicaul, thinly coriaceous, purple flushed beneath, narrowly elliptic, long-acuminate, round and sharply contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late spring on 2, arising on the back of the leaf, filiform, congested, distichous, .32 to .6" [.8 to 1.5 cm] long, successively many flowered inflorescence with sparsely muricate, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.

Related to L urotepala and L zunagensis but differs in the long-ciliate margins of the petals and the long ciliate, intricate appendix.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVII Systematics of Dryadella Systematics of Macrophyllae-Fasciculatae Luer 2005 drawing fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide

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