Lepanthes ortegae Luer & Hirtz 1996 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Mucronatae Luer 1996
Photo by © Alexander Hirtz
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
LATE
THROUGH EARLY
Common Name Ortega's Lepanthes [Ecuadorian Orchid Enthusiast and codiscoverer of species current]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in eastern Ecuador at elevations around 1000 meters as a miniature sized, warm growing epiphyte with a erect, very slender ramicaul enveloped by 9 to 10, close, thin, microscopically scabrous lepanthiform sheaths with long-acuminate apices carrying a single, apical, erect to suberect, thinly coriaceous, purple suffused, reticulate-veined, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late spring through early fall on a filiform, extremely congested, secund, to .92" [to 2.3 cm] long, successively several flowered inflorescence with long pedicels and arising on the back of the leaf.
"Closely related to L cotyledon but L ortegae is distinguished by the small habit, with very slender, weak ramicauls that bear a purple, thin, reticulated leaf. The long-pedicellate raceme is very cingested, birne near the middle of the back of the leaf. The sepals are smoothj and acute, the upper lobe of the petals is truncate while the lower lobe is much longer, narrow and acute, the blades of teh lip are thin and convex above the column and the appendix is protuberant with a central cavity and apical glands." Luer 1996
Synonyms
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 photo fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide
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