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

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and Flickr Orchid Photo Website

Common Name The Silenus Lepanthes [greek myth, leader of the satyrs]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations around 2100 to 2750 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 5 to 9 , long-pubescent lepanthiform sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, purple suffused beneath, rigid, narrowly ovate, acute, cuneate and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer and fall on a loose, weak distichous, 1.6" to 1.64" [4 to 4.1 cm] long, successively many flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf with lightly echinate floral bracts.

"Similar to L pteropogon vegetatively with the long-pubescent, lepanthiform sheaths and a narrow leaf with the inlorescence borne on the back surface and L intonsa floristically, differing in the long ciliate sepals and the acute process on the outer margin of the petals." 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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