Lepanthes helicocephala Rchb.f. 1856 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes Novon 1993 Photo courtesy of © Dalton Holland Baptista and © Orchidstudium

Flower and Leaf Photo By © Maarten Sepp

Common Name The Haloed Head Lepanthes

Flower Size .2" [5mm]

Found in French Guiana, Surinam, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil at elevations of 60 to 950 meters as a mini-miniature sized, hot growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 6 to 9, glabrous to microscopically ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-ovate, obtuse, broadly cuneate to rounded below and contracted into a petiolate base leaf that blooms at most any time of the year on a congested, distichous, .2 to .4" [7 to 12mm] long, successively many flowered, racemose inflorescence arising behind the leaf.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Xenia Orchidaceae Rchb.f 1854; Venezuelan Orchids Vol 5 Dunsterville & Garay 1966 drawing fide; Flora de Venezuela Volumen 15 Parte 3 Foldats 1970 drawing ok; Orchids of Venezuela An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing fide; The Orchids of Surinam Werkhoven 1986 photo ok; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 275 Bennett & Christenson 1995 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Volume XIV Luer 1996 drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 2 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003 drawing ok; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide

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