Restrepia ephippium Luer & Hirtz 1994 Restrepia SUBGENUS Restrepia SECTION Restrepia
Photos by © Milan Vágner
Photo courtesy of Wilfried Löderbusch
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name or Meaning The Saddle-Shaped Restrepia [refers to the synsepals shape]
Flower Size .8" [2 cm]
Found in northwestern Ecuador in wet forests at elevations of 1200 to 1800 meters as a small sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped by 6 to 8 thin, whitish, loose, compressed, lightly black dotted, imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical erect, coriaceous, ovate, subacute to obtuse, with a rounded base, contracted into a twisted petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a slender, 2.4" to 3.6" [6 to 9 cm] long, successively single flowered inflorescence in a fascile arising from the back of the leaf and carrying a thin, tubular, shorter than teh ovary floral bract.
"The elliptical synsepal, slightly concave and striped with purple in the lower third, is convex and spotted with purple on deflexed sides above the middle. The sides are deflexed to create a longitudinal, central wedge or angle of about 90 degrees along which the longitudinally convex lip rests. Prominent capillary proceses are present near the bases of the petals. The lip is spotted, glabrous and oblong-subpandurate with a retuse apex that fits like a saddle over the longitudinal, midline angle of the synsepal." Luer 1996
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VIII Systematics of Restrepia Luer 1996 drawing/photo fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 photo fide;
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