Lepanthes intricata Luer 1983 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes

Photo by © Alexander Hirtz

TYPE Drawing

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

Common Name The Intricate Lepanthes [refers to the intricities of the appendix]

Flower Size .08" [2 mm]

Found in Ecuador and Peru at elevations around 1000 to 2450 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cold growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 8 to 11, minutely ciliate lepanthiform sheaths with markedly dilated ostia and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coriaceous, more or less purplish suffused, ovate, acute to acuminate, rounded and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer and fall on a filiform, congested, flexuous, distichous, 1.6" [4 cm] long, successively flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.

"Identified by the congested inflorescence shorter than the ovate, acuminate leaf, entire sepals, transverse petals with the upper lobes large and obtuse, the lip with a narrow body and an intricate appendix with an apical segment more or less with 4 tufts of hairs." Luer 1996

This species has a similar appendix to <>A href="lepchrysina.htm"> L chrysina

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Phytologia 54:349 1983, Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Systematics of Draconanthes, Lepanthes subgenus Marsipanthes and subgenus Lepanthes of Ecuador Luer 1996 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 2 Dodson 2001 photo good; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide

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