Lepanthes culex

Lepanthes culex Luer & R.Escobar, Amer. Orchid Soc. Bull. 53: 716 (-717), fig (1984).

Lepanthes culex Luer & R.Escobar, Photo by Carlos Augusto Mesa Londoño 

its native range is Colombia (Antioquia, Valle del Cauca).

Latinh Name: 

Lepanthes culex Luer & R.Escobar

Family: 

Orchidaceae Juss.

Synonym:

No synonyms are recorded for this name.

English Name:

The Mosquito-Like Lepanthes (refers to the minute, spindly flower).

Description: 

With slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 5 to 6, microscopically scabrous, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, purple suffused beneath, elliptical, lightly acuminate, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late winter through spring on a filiform, very congested, distichous, 1.2 cm long including the .8 mm long peduncle, successively single, few flowered inflorescence arising from beneath the leaf with minutely ciliate floral bracts.

Distribution:

Colombia.

Ecological:

In cloud forests at elevations around 1800 to 2700 m as a mini-miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte.

Flowering times:

Blooms in the late winter through spring.

Flower size:

2.0 mm.

Cultivation:

Keep plant in partial shade. Plant can be grown in cool to intermediate conditions. Pot the plant in fine bark with perlite or sphagnum moss. Water regularly and keep potting media moist.

Type:

Collector Team:

E.Valencia,R.Escobar 2676

Type Herbaria:

holotype SEL

Distribution Of Types:

Colombia (Western South America, Southern America)