Lepanthes athena Luer 1996 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Andreas Kay and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
Photo by © Alexander Hirtz
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
EARLIER 
Common Name The Dagger Winged Lepanthes [refers to the petals being like a butterfly]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in southern Colombia and northern-most Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations around 1400 to 2400 meters as a miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with a slender to stout, erect ramicaul enveloped by 9 to 16, coarsely ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute to acuminate, rounded and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer and fall on a filiform, congested, distichous, 1.8" [4.5 cm] long, successively many flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.
"Similar to L actias-lunae but L athena differs in the smaller flowers with pubescent petals. Instead of transverse, overlapping lobes of the petals with incurved apices, the upper lobes are ovate with short, diverging tails. The lower lobes are slender in both species but acuminate and broader in L athena." Luer 1996
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Systematics of Draconanthes, Lepanthes subgenus Marsipanthes and subgenus Lepanthes of Ecuador Luer 1996 drawing fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII 2012 drawing fide; Orchid Digest Vol 83 #3 2019 photo fide; Orchids A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 drawing fide;
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