Lepanthes capitana Rchb.f. 1855

SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Breves SERIES Breves Luer 1993 TYPE Drawing by Rchb.f

Common Name or Meaning The Large Flowered Inflorescence Lepanthes

Flower Size .2" [5mm]

Found in northwestern Ecuador at elevations of 2700 to 3300 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 5 to 8, minutely scabrous, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall winter and spring on a loose, lightly flexuous, to 4" [10 cm] long, racemose, successively several flowered inflorescence.

This species is a small version of L elegantula which may turn out to be conspecific but it does differ in the larger flowers and the larger, longer sepals with long-acuminate apices.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Luer 1996 drawing fide as L capitanea; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide as L capitanea

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