Lepanthes teres Luer 1983 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes

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

LATE

Common Name The Terete Lepanthes [refers to the leaf]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Loja province of Ecuador at elevations around 2250 to 2400 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 4 to 5, close lepanthiform sheaths with microscopically scabrous, along the ribs and margins of the ostia carrying a single, apical, red purple, erect, fleshy, narrowly ovoid, terete, shallowly sulcate, gradually narrowing from the base to the acute apex, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and fall on a filiform, extremely congested, distichous, .52" [1.3 cm] long, successively flowered inflorescence arising on the back side of the leaf.

"Distinguished by the ovoid-terete leaves and short, congested inflorescence. The lateal sepals are fringed, the dorsal sepal is entire. The upper lobe of the petals is proportionally very large, the lower lobe is narrow. The apices of the blades of the lip are ciliate and the appendix is bilobed and fitted into a recepticle in the body." Luer 1996

There are only a few Lepanthes with terete leaves and they are L aciculifolia, L canaliculata, L fusiformis, L gustavoi and L teres.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytologia 54: 373 Luer 1983; 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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