Lepanthes velifera Luer & Béhar 1991 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Fredy Archila
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
EARLY
Common Name The Veil Bearing Lepanthes [refers to the fimbriate, skirt-like structure of the lobes of the lip]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Baja Verapaz department of Guatemala in cloud forests at elevations around 1700 to 1800 meters as a miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with slender, more or less horizontal ramicauls enveloped completely by 6 to 10, dark brown, microscopically scabrous lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, spreading but erect in relation to the ramicual , thinly coriaceous, purple suffused beneath, ovate, acute, acuminate, acuminate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall and early winter on a, congested, distichous, 1 to 1.32" [2.5 to 3.3 cm] long including the .6 to .92” [1.5 to 2.3 cm] long peduncle, successively single, many flowered inflorescence arising on top of the leaf with muricate floral bracts.
Vegetatively distinguished by the slender ramicauls too weak to bear erect the weight of the acuminate leves. The densely distichous raceme is borne on top of the leaf. The petals with pointed lobes are as large as or larger than the sepals. Most unusual is a well defined, tangled, ovate mat of fimbriate hairs on the sital halves of the blades of the lip that are fused medially over the column. This is alos also seen in the Ecuadorian L deformis. The column is short and stout with a transverse stigma." Luer & Behar 1991
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI * Lindleyana 6(2): 79 Luer & Behar 1991 drawing fide; Lepanthes de Guatemala Archila 2001 photo/drawing fide;
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