Lepanthes comet-halleyi Luer 1987 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
TYPE Drawing Photos by © Bogarin/TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer , Used under permission of Epidendra Website CR
Common Name The Comet Halley Lepanthes
Flower Size .1" [2.5 mm]
Found in Costa Rica at elevations around 1500 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphtye with erect ramicauls enveloped completely by 3 to 6 lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, round, incurved, obtuse leaf that blooms in the spring on a short single flowered inflorescence holding the flower within the inrolled leaf.
Said to be synomonous with L helleri but if so then either I have one of them wrong as they are not even close to similar or they are 2 distinct species as I feel they are. If they are synomonous then this species becomes a synonym of L helleri.
"Related to the larger Panamanian and Costa Rican L infundibulum with both having the sides of the round, thickly coriaceous leaves roll down to create a tube, with the flowers borne within along the back side of the leaf. The flowers are similar in size and color but the petals are distinctly different. The upper lobes of the petals of L infundibulum are broadly ovate and overlapping. The narrowly falcate upper lobes of L comet-haleyi are only a third as wide, widepread and incurved. The blades of the lip of the lip of L comet-haleyi are slender and falcate, the slender apices surpassing the column. The ovate blades of the lip of L infundibulum are shorter than the column with the incurved apices behind the stigma." Luer 1987
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR CHECKED Type fide; * Lindleyana 2: 185 Luer 1987 drawing fide;
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