Lepanthes ophelma Luer & R. Escobar 1985 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Mucronatae Luer 1996
Photo by Walter Teague
Photo courtesy of Eric Hunt ©.
Photos by Jay Pfahl ©
Photos by Arturo Carillo ©
Photo by © Lourens Grobler
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
LATER
Common Name The Broom Lepantes [refers to the appearance of the appendix]
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Colombia at elevations of 2400 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 10 to 12, close, short ciliate lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, narrowly ovate, acute, acuminate, apiculate, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf and blooms in the later summer on a filiform, very congested, distichous, 1.2 to 1.8" [3 to 4.5 cm] long including the .6 to 1.2" [1.5 to 3 cm] long peduncle, successively single, several flowered inflorescence holding the flower just off the top of the leaf.
"Most remarkable for the large, colorful flowers which, with their weight often hang over the sides of the narrowly ovate-acuminate leaves. The transversely bilobed petals produce a setiform tooth at the middle. The oblong lobes of the lip are glabrous and adgerent over the column. The appendix is relatively large and densely long-pubescent on the external surface." Luer Escobar 1985
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * AOS Bulletin Vol 54 No 6 1985 drawing/photo fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 2 COS 1991 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 62 No 10 1993 photo; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide; Orchid Digest Vol 83 #3 2019 photo fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 drawing/photo fide; Checked type drawing W3 Tropicos OK
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