Restrepia metae Luer 1996 Restrepia SUBGENUS Restrepia SECTION Restrepia
Photo by © Wiel Driessen and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
LATE
EARLY
Common Name The Meta Restrepia [A department in Colombia in the northern llanos]
Flower Size .8" [2 cm]
Found in Meta department of Colombia in wet montane forests at elevations around 550 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm growing epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped by 6 to 7 thin, whitish, loose, compressed, more or less imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ovate, subacute, broadly cuneate to rounded below into the twisted petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on a fascile of slender, arising on the back of the leaf, 1.4 to 2" [3.5 to 5 cm] long, successively single flowered inflorescence with a thin, tubular, shorter than the ovary floral bract.
"Distinguished by the apices of the dorsal sepal and petals being barely clavate, those of the petals only slightly thickened, hardly clavate at all. Also close to Restrepia guttulata but differs in the much smaller plant size. The minutely spotted narrow synsepal and the oblong lip are all similar in both species. It differs from Restrepia contorta in the nearly smooth oblong lip.
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Orquideología 20: 159. Luer 1996 Drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VIII Systematics of Restrepia Luer 1996 drawing fide; Libro Rojo de Plantas De Colombia Vol 6 Primera Parte Saenz 2007
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