Restrepia chameleon Luer & R. Escobar 1996 Restrepia SUBGENUS Restrepia SECTION Restrepia
Photo by © Eric Hunt
TYPE Photos/TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Color-Changing Restrepia
Flower Size 2" [5 cm]
Found in Norte de Santander department of Colombia in forested, subparamo valleys at an elevation around 2700 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 5 to 10, whitish, loose, compressed, somewhat imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical erect, coriaceous, elliptical-ovate, subacute, broadly cuneate or rounded into the contracted, twisted petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring and summer on a slender, 2 to 3.6" [5 to 9 cm] long, solitary flowered, produced successively in a fascile that is held to the underside of the leaf and carries a thin tubular, shorter than the ovary floral bract.
"Characterized by the large habit, and large to medium sized flowers that exhibit the unique quality of bearing either spots or stripes. Most synseplas are white or pinkish white, but a significant percentage are pale yellow. In either case the additional pigmentation consists of small, dispersed spots, small spots in rows or stripes elther partial or well defines. The lip is broadly elliptical-oblong, microscopically cellular-verrucose, with the hypochile prportionally short and indistinctly demarcated from the epichile." Luer 1996
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VIII Systematics of Restrepia Luer 1996 drawing/photo fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 4 COS 1992 as R antennifera var roseola photo #549 fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 6 COS 1998 errata; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 6 COS 1998 photo fideOasis Vol 1 No 1 2000 photo; Australian Orchid Review Vol 66 No 5 2001 photo; Australian Orchid Review Vol 69 No 4 2004 photo; Libro Rojo de Plantas De Colombia Vol 6 Primera Parte Saenz 2007 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 86 # 7 2017 photo fide;
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