Lepanthes gargoyla Luer & Hirtz 1988 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Eric Hunt
Photo courtesy of Andy's Orchids Copyright © 2002 All rights reserved.
Photos courtesy of Patricia Harding.
TYPE drawing by © Carl Luer
TO 
Common Name The Gargoyle Lepanthes [named for it's likeness to a gargoyle]
Flower Size 1/4" [.65 cm]
Found in Ecuador in cloud forests as a miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte at elevations around 900 to 1300 meters with slender, erect, ramicauls enveloped basally by 7 to 11 thin, glabrous, lang-acuminate, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, suberect to spreading, coriaceous, purple suffused, ovate, recurved margins, acute leaf with the cuneate base contracted into the petiole that blooms in the spring on a congested, secund, successively several flowered, to 1 3/4" [4.5 cm] long, racemose inflorescence with oblique floral bracts.
"Vegetatively it resembles L pubescens but the comparatively large, brown flowers with green petals are distinct. The sepals are oddly undulate and the apices of the laterals are conduplicate, reminiscnt of the many species related to L complicata from Bolivia." Luer 1996
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Systematics of Draconanthes, Lepanthes subgenus Marsipanthes and subgenus Lepanthes of Ecuador 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; AOS Bulletin Vol 86 #7 2017 photo fide;
Checked Type drawing OK
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