Lepanthes thalia Luer & Hirtz 1996 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Mucronatae Luer 1996
Photos by © Tom Fox
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name Thalia's Lepanthes [greek mythological muse of Comedy]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Esmeraldas province of Ecuador at elevations around 800 meters as a miniature sized, warm growing epiphyte with a slender, suberect ramicaul enveloped by 10 to 12, microscopically ciliate lepanthiform sheaths with oblique long-attenuate ostia carrying a single, apical, erect, rigid,narrowly linear, acute, channeled, sulcate medially with both halves convex, contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms on a filiform, very congested, to .6 to 1.2" [1.5 to 3 cm] long, successively many flowered inflorescence arising on the top side of the leaf.
"Characterized by the thin, reticulate leaves, weakly borne by slender ramicauls. The flowers are borne on top of the leaf in a dense, long-pedicellate raceme, the sepals are entire and obtuse, the lateral lobules of the petals are reduced to apicula, the lobes of the petals are narrowly pointed, the thin b;lades of the lip aer adherent over the coumn and the appendix is large, oblong and protruding beyond the column." 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; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide
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