Lepanthes orion Luer & R. Escobar 1985

SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes Novon 1993 Photo by © Jay Pfahl

to LATE THROUGH

Common Name Orion's Lepanthes [refers to the mythological giant figure, in allusion to the size of the flower]

Flower Size 3/8" x 3/4" [1.1 cm x 2 cm]

Found in the eastern cordillera of Colombia and central Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations of 2000 to 2800 meters as a small sized, cool to cold growing lithophyte with slender to stout, erect, ramicauls enveloped completely by 11 to 28, tan, glabrous, lepanthiform sheaths carrying a single, apical, thinly coriaceous, prominently veined beneath, ovate, acute, acuminate, basally rounded and contracted into a petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late spring through fall on a very congested, disitchous, successively many flowered, racemose inflorescence.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *AOS Bulletin Vol 54 No 3 Luer & Escobar 1985 photo/drawing; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 2 COS 1991 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum XIV Systematics of Draconanthes Lepanthe Subgenus Marsupianthes and Subgenus Lepanthes of Ecuador Luer 1996 drawing ok; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide

Checked type drawing on W3Tropicos and Luer OK

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