Lepanthes velata Luer & Hirtz 1987 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Breves SERIES Breves Luer 1993 Drawing by Carl Luer © and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Common Name The Covered Lepanthes [refers to the petals that are behind the lip]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Morona-Santiago Ecuador in cold cloud forests at elevations around 3180 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphyte with an erect, slender ramicaul enveloped by 11 to 13, dark brown, minutely ciliate-scabrous, lepanthiform sheaths with a dilated ostia carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly ovate, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer and fall on a filiform, subcongested, to .6 to 1.1" [1.5 to 2.6 cm] long, successively single, several flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Luer 1996 drawing fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide

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