Lepanthes plumifera Luer 1984 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes 1993

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

Common Name The Feather Bearing Lepanthes [refers to the featherlike appendix]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Valle de Cauca Department of Colombia and western Ecuador at elevations around 650 to 1300 meters as a miniature sized, warm growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 6 to 11, tight fitting, microscopically ciliate lepanthiform sheaths carrying a single, apical, suberect, thinly coriaceous, ovate, obtuse to long acuminate, rounded and abruptly contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a filiform, congested, distichous, to .72" [1.8 cm] long, successively many flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf and carrying muricate floral bracts.

Similar to L vespertillo but differs the shorter peduncle and in the large protuberant, fringed appendix.

Synonyms

References Orquideas de Farallones de Cali Galindo-Tarazona, Haelterman, Zuluaga Trochez and Sebastian Moreno 2020 photo fide Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Luer 1996 drawing fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide; W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

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