Lepanthes esmeralda Luer & Hirtz 1992SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes Novon 1993 Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Another Drawing? Original Drawing by © Padre Pedro Ortiz Conserved at the Herbario de la Universidad Javeriana Bogota Colombia

Common Name The Emerald Lepanthes [refers to the province in Ecuador where it is found as well as the emerald petals]

Flower Size 1/5" [5mm]

Found in Esmeraldas Province Ecuador in wet montane cloud forests at elevations around 750 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped basally by 5 to 7 microscopically ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths and carries a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ovate, acute, cuneate and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that have a purple hue on the underside and blooms on a dense, distichous, 1.2" [3 cm] long, successively many flowered, racmose inflorescence that is shorter than the leaf and arising on the underside of the leaf.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Systematics of Draconanthes and Lepanthes Luer 1996 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 2 Dodson 2001 drawing/photo fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide

Checked Luer OK

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