Lepanthes pachychila Luer & Hirtz 2012 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photos by © Alexander Hirtz
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Thick Lipped Lepanthes
Flower Size .24" [6 mm]
Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations around 2500 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 8 to 9, acute, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, shortly acuminate at the tip, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on 2, arising from the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle .8 to 1.2" [2 to 3 cm] long, rachis to 1.2" [3 cm] long, congested, distichous, successively single, many flowered inflorescence with shorter than the ovary floral bracts.
"This sturdy species produces two inflorescences with successively and densely flowered racemes that eventually reach the length of the leaf. The flowers are relatively large with acute tips of the sepals, and narrowly triangular lobes of the petals. Most remarkable are the oblong blades of the lip that are unusually thickened, especially the anterior halves." Luer 2012
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Harvard Papers in Botany, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 333 to 368 2012 MISCELLANEOUS NEW SPECIES IN THE PLEUROTHALLIDINAE (ORCHIDACEAE) Carlyle A. Luer drawing fide
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