Lepanthes zunagensis Luer & Hirtz 1996 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photos by © Andreas Kay and his Orchids of Ecuador Flickr Photo Website
TYPEDrawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name The Rio Zunag Lepanthes [A River in Pastaza Ecuador]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Pastaza province of Ecuador at elevations around 2200 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with an erect, slender to stout ramicaul enveloped by 6 to 7, minutely ciliate lepanthiform sheaths with dilated ostia carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ovate, acute to acuminate, rounded and abruptly contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on a slender, congested, .6" [1.5 cm] long, successively several flowered inflorescence arising on the top of the leaf.
"Most similar to L deficiens from Colombia but this one has a small habit with markedly dilated ostia of tje lepanthiform sheath. The flowers have intensely dark red petals and lip and are borne in a short raceme on top of the leaf. The sepals are broadly ovate and minutely denticulate. The petals are large, longer than the sepals and the lip is bilamminate witha longitudinally bisegented 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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