Lepanthes ingridiana

Lepanthes ingridiana is a rare species from Ecuador whose flowers are some of the largest in the genus.  The plant itself is also quite large for the genus, 15-20 cm tall.  It bears a single 6 cm leaf on an upright stem with the typical bracts of a Lepanthes and flowers that would be 8 cm long if laid flat.  The plants are native to Ecuador and Columbia and come from higher elevations.  They require cool temperatures in cultivation.  My plant is grown in sphagnum moss in a plastic pot.

I've also added a few other pictures on black and taken at an earlier date that I had not posted before.

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Lepanthes calodictyon

Lepanthes calodictyon is a tiny plant but very desirable especially for its foliage, though the tiny flowers are also very intricate and colorful.  It is from Colombia and Ecuador and the plant is about 5 cm tall with leaves 3 cm in diameter and flowers that are only 8 mm.  The species name refers to the net-patterned leaves.  I have trouble growing this with my cool-growing plants and am growing it now in a warmer area in a small terrarium.

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Lepanthes ribes

I had given this plant up for dead but noticed today that it was putting up new growth and had even produced a flower, so I moved it to a more suitable location  in the hope it will flourish there.  It comes from Ecuador and Colombia and is only about 6 cm tall, but the flower is nearly 1.5 cm.  As is often the case with Lepanthes, it bears its flowers on thin, wiry spikes, in this case about 6 cm long.  The name of the species, ribes, refers to its fancied resemblance of the flowers to the fruits of plants in the genus Ribes.

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Lepanthes calodictyon

This is one of the most desirable species in the genus, Lepanthes, not for its flowers but for its beautiful patterned leaves.  It is from Colombia and Ecuador and the plant is about 5cm tall with leaves 3cm in diameter and flowers that are only 8mm.  The species name refers to the net-patterned leaves.  I have trouble growing this with my cool-growing plants and am growing it now in a warmer area in a small terrarium.

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Lepanthes ingridiana

Lepanthes ingridiana is a rather rare species from Ecuador whose flowers are some of the largest in the genus.  The plant itself is also quite large, for the genus, 15-20 cm tall.  It bears a single 5 cm leaf on an upright stem with the typical bracts of a Lepanthes.  The plants are native to Ecuador and Columbia and come from higher elevations.  They require cool temperatures in cultivation.

The bright yellow spidery flowers are huge for the genus.  Fully extended they would be around 7 cm long, but they tend to hang in a kind of half-circle under the leaves.  The flowers appear successively with a new bud forming as the previous flower opens.  The plant is almost always in flower, therefore, with each new growth adding its succession of flowers to those already blooming.

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Lepanthes escobariana

Here is Lepanthes escobariana once again.  One of my favorite Lepanthes, it is easy to grow and the flower spikes produce flowers successively over a very long period of time so that the plant is always in bloom with very large flowers for the size of the plant.  It comes from Colombia and is named for a Colombian orchid grower, Rodrigo Escobar.  The flowers are about 2 cm tall and are arranged on long wiry spikes that grow from the leaf-base of single-leaved growths about 3-4 cm tall.

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Lepanthes nycteris

Lepanthes nycteris is from Bolivia and Peru and belongs to a group of orchids whose flowers are mostly small but very unusual, very complex and often very colorful.  A previous blog post shows a large number of these flowers (see below).  In this case the rather strange flowers are named after a family of bats, the Slit-faced Bats, or Nycteridae.

The plant is 6-7 cm and the flowers a little over 2 cm tall.  The plant has oval leaves on thin, wiry stems and the flowers come in succession on thin dangling spikes.  For this reason the plant is better grown mounted, and mine is on a thin piece of cork bark.  Since it comes from high altitude cloud forest, it should be grown cool and moist and prefers quite low light.

For more information on the genus Lepanthes see this post:
http://orchidsinbloom-ron.blogspot.com/2011/08/lepanthes-jewels-of-orchid-world.html

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Lepanthes, Jewels of the Orchid World

Lepanthes is a genus of orchids from Central and South America with well over 800 species in the genus. It is known for its colorful flowers, which are often very intricate, very odd-shaped and very colorful, though sometimes very small. The flowers can be several centimeters in size, but are often only a few millimeters. Even the tiniest flowers, however, are amazing when viewed under a magnifying glass, or photographed with a macro lens. They can well be thought of as the jewels of the orchid world.

L. escobarina

L. orion

L. niesseniae

L. ophioglossa and L. ingridiana

L. telipogoniflora

L. elegantula

L. caprimulgus

L. hirtzii

L. gargoyla

L. cochlearifolia and L. unidentified species

L. felix

L. discolor

L. pastoensis

L. velicata

L. stenophylla

L. agglutinata and L. meniscophora

L. calodyction

L. hirsuta

Note: the last two photos are not mine.  They are AOS awards photos and I have no idea who the photographers were.  If I am using them improperly I would be more than ready to apologize and remove them.

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