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

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

Common Name Urania's Lepanthes [Greek mythological muse of Astromony, refers to the rounded moon-like flowers]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Carchi province Ecuador at elevations around 900 meters as a small sized, warm growing epiphyte with an erect, stout ramicaul enveloped by 10 to 15, minutely ciliate lepanthiform sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, elliptical-obovate, subacute to acuminate, more or less lightly convex towards the base, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on a slender, congested, disitchous, 1.68 to 1.96" [4.2 to 4.7 cm] long, successively many flowered inflorescence arising on the top of the leaf.

"Characterized by the large habit with obovate, acuminate leaves that are more or less convex basally with the congested inflorescnece borne on the concave back side. The sepals are transparent with broad, acute apices. The petals are transeversely oblong with the upper ends overlapping above the column. The blades of the lip are indistinctly demarcated, being broad, flattened ends of broad connectives. The body is broad with an incised sinus and an ovoid, pubescent 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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