Lepanthes wageneri Rchb. 1855 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photos by Arturo Carrilo
Original Drawing by © Padre Pedro Ortiz Conserved at the Herbario de la Universidad Javeriana Bogota Colombia
Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name Wagener's Lepanthes [German Dicoverer of species 1800's]
Flower Size .25" [3 mm]
Found in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia at elevations of 1300 to 3000 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 4 to 8, minutely ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, purple suffused, elliptical, subacute to obtuse, broadly cuneate basally into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter, spring and summer on a slender, congested, .12 to .4" [3 to 10 mm] long including the .12" [3 mm] long peduncle, successively several flowered, racmose inflorescence arising from behind the leaf
This species is similar to L privigna but differs in the ovate, acute leavers, the ovate acute, slightly acuminate sepals with the laterals somewhat spreading. L wagneri in contrast has obtuse leaves and the sepals are subacute with the laterals nearly approximate.
Variable in both plant and flower form it is usually easily recognized. The leaves are small, thick, elliptical and purple suffused. The inflorescence ois short and behiond the leaf. The flowers are colorful with various combinations of yellow, orange, red and purple. The sepals are very shallowly connate and sometimes shortly acuminate. The petals are very variable in size and shape and almost never are the same even in the same population. The lip however is esily recognized the oblong blades that are longitudinally channeled or concave with the obtuse or truncate apex more or less recurvede. The appendix is longitudinal and boat-shped on the external surface of the body and extending forward beyond the sinus. It can be recognized easly froma side view when the blade of the lip is lifted.
Synonyms Lepanthes dalstroemii Luer 1983
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Bonplandia Rcb.f 1855; AOS Bulletin Vol 30 No 5 1961; Venezuelan Orchid Illustrated Vol 1 Dunsterville & Garay 1959 drawing not = L gin-ganii; Flora de Venezuela Volumen 15 Parte 2 Foldats 1970 as L barbae Drawing good; Flora de Venezuela Volumen 15 Parte 2 Foldats 1970 not = L ginganii; Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing not = L cercion; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Luer 1996 drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 1 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Orchids of Bolivia Vol 1 Vasquez & Ibisch 2000; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Orchid Digest 1/2010; 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; Orquideas de Farallones de Cali Galindo-Tarazona, Haelterman, Zuluaga Trochez and Sebastian Moreno 2020 photo fide
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