Lepanthes craticia Luer 1983 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes 1993 Photo by © Bruno Larsen and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website

Drawing TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

EARLY

Common Name The Latticed Lepanthes [refers to the densely flowered rachis]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in southeastern Ecuador at elevations around 2650 to 2950 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 10 to 18, glabrous, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, elliptical, acute to acuminate, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer through early fall on a filiform, congested, distichous, 2.4" [6 cm] long, successively flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.

L cratica is distinguished by the distichous raceme shorter than the leaf, the reniform petals, the glabrous blades of the lip with an oblong appendix carrying a truncate, apical segment.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Luer 1996 drawing fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide

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