Lepanthes aculeata Luer 1983 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photos by © Milan Vágner
TYPE drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Prickly Lepanthes [Refering to the underside of the leaf]
Flower Size .2" [5mm]
Found in Ecuador and Peru on the eastern slopes of the Andes at elevations of 1000 to 2000 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped basally by 7 to 15, long ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths with widely dilated ostia and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ovate, slightly acuminate, acute, gradually narrowing below into the elongate petiolate base leaf that has erose lacerate margins and the underside covered by numerous, small, depressions and excavations with elevated ridges covered in short brushy hairs and the dorsal side is smooth. The bloom time is in the spring through summer on a congested, .8" [2 cm] long, filiform, successively many flowered, racemose, inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.
Distinguished by the prickly-rugose leaves with minutely fringed margins and carrying red and green flowers that are coarsely denticulate and broadly obtuse with red and orange, proportionally large, transversely lobed petals and the connectives of the lip lift the blades with hook shaped tips well above the column as well as the large, hinged appendix is flexibly hinged in the sinus.
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Phytologia 54:327 Luer 1983; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Systematics of Draconanthes, Lepanthes subgenus Marsipanthes and subgenus Lepanthes of Ecuador Luer 1996 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 482 Bennett & Christenson 1998 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 2 Dodson 2001 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 72 No 1 2003 Photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 72 No 2 2003 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 72 No 6 2003 photo fide; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 80 #6 2011 photo fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide; Orchids A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 photo fide;
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