Restrepia cuprea Luer & R. Escobar 1996 Restrepia SUBGENUS Restrepia SECTION Restrepia
Photo by © Jorge Mario Munera
Photo by © Lourens Grobler
Photo by Eric Hunt Plant grown by Dan Newman of Hanging Gardens.
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Copper-Colored Restrepia
Flower Size .8" [2 cm]
Found in Colombia on the eastern slopes of the central cordillera in cloud forests at elevations of 1600 to 1700 meters as a miniature to small sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 6 to 7, thin whitish, loose, compressed, somewhat imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, often suffused with purple beneath, elliptical ovate, subacute, cuneate to rounded basally contracted into the twisted petiolate base leaf and blooms in the spring and fall on a terminal, slender, single flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf and carrying a thin, tubular, longer than the ovary floral bract.
"Related toRestrepia guttulata differs in the shorter, stouter habit, shorter peduncles and distinctly colored flowers neither wholly striped nor spotted. Except for a few purple spots along the margin below the middle and yellow at the base, the synsepal of most clones is a solid, rich, coppery color, like no other seen in the genus. The lip is broad, oblong, and unspotted except for a few dots on the sides below the middle. The blade is minutely scabrous ad denticulate." Luer 1996
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 4 COS 1992 photo # 547 fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VIII Systematics of Restrepia Luer 1996 drawings/photos fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 6 COS 1998 errata; Australian Orchid Review Vol 66 No 5 2001 photo; Libro Rojo de Plantas De Colombia Vol 6 Primera Parte Saenz 2007 photo fide; AOS Bulletin vol 78 No 10 2009 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 86 # 7 2017 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 86 #9 2017 photo fide;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
