Lepanthes gargantua Rchb. f. 1856 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes Novon 1993 Photo by Patricia Harding

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Common Name The Large Lepanthes [refers to the plant]

Flower Size .2" [5mm]

Found in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru as a medium to large sized[largest in the genus], cold to cool growing epiphyte at elevations of 900 to 3400 meters in wet cloud forests with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped basally by 11 to 16 lepanthiform sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, oblong-ovate, subacute to obtuse acuminate leaf with the rounded base contracted into a petiole and blooms in the winter and spring on 1 to several, simultaneous, congested, distichous, racemose successively many flowered inflorescence arising from behind the leaf.

Synonyms Lepanthes pachyrhiza Luer & Hirtz 1987

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Xenia Orchidaceae Rchb.f 1854; Fieldiana Biology, Vol 33, 1st Supple. to the Orchids of Peru Schweinfurth 1970; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 2 COS 1991 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 64 No 10 1995 photo; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Systematics of Draconanthes and Lepanthes 1996 drawing fide; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide

Checked to Luer's Drawing OK

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