Lepanthes nivea Luer 1983 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes 1993 Photo by © Carlo Balistrieri

Another Flower Photo by © Alexander Hirtz

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

LATE

Common Name The Snow White Lepanthes [refers to the flower color]

Flower Size 1/2" [1.25 cm]

Found in southeastern Ecuador at elevations around 2600 to 2800 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphyte with a slender, suberect to horizontal ramicaul enveloped by 12 to 17, microscopically ciliate lepanthiform sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, purple beneath oblong-ovate, acuminate to acute, rounded and abruptly contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on a filiform, congested, subsecund, 2.4" [6 cm] long, successively flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orchid Digest Vol 62 #2 1998 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVII Luer 1998 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 2 Dodson 2001 photo fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide

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