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

Photo by Ecuagenera and their Ecuador Orchid Website

TYPE Drawing

TYPE by © Carl Luer

Common Name or Meaning The Pinched Lepanthes [refers to the appearance of the deflexed bases of the blades of the leaves]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Colombia and western Ecuador in wet montane forests at elevations around 750 meters as a small sized, warm growing epiphyte with stout, erect ramicauls enveloped by 8 to 15, ciliate lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, elliptical, acute, deflexed above the base, cuneate below and contracted into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on a slender, distichous, 1.4 to 1.6" [3.5 to 4 cm] long including the .8 to 1" [2 to 2.5 cm] long peduncle, filiform, successively many flowered, racemose inflorescence arising from behind the leaf with ciliate floral bracts.

"Related to L Pachyglossa from Panama and L troglodytes from Colombia. All three are from relatively low areas and are characterized by the deflexed sides of the base of the leaf, imparting a "pinched" appearance. L vellicata differs from both in having cilate sepals, those of the others are glabrous. The appendix of L vellicata is minute, deflexed , ovoid and pubescent." LUer 1996

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 5 COS 1994 photo fide; *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; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide; Orchids A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 drawing/photo fide;

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