Lepanthes micropetala L.O.Williams 1940 GENUS Lepanthes SUBGENUS Brachycladium SECTION Amplectentes Luer 1994 Drawing by L. O. Williams and The Epidendra Website

Common Name or Meaning The Very Small Petaled Lepanthes

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Colombia to Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations around 2400 to 2700 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with pendant, long repent, occasionally branching rhizomes giving rise to abbreviated ramicauls concealed by a long-spiculate lepanthiform sheath and carrying a single, apical, descending, coriaceous, minutely short ciliate, entire, broadly elliptical to suborbicular, obtuse to rounded apically, 3 veined, contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter and spring on an ascending, slender, .04 to .08" [1 to 2 mm] long, single flowered inflorescence occasionally followed by a second flower.

Synonyms Brachycladium micropetalum (L.O.Williams) Luer 2005; Oreophilus micropetalus (L.O.Williams) Archila 2009; Penducella micropetala (L.O.Williams) Luer 2010

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Bot. Mus. Leafl. Harvard Univ. 9: 4. 1940. Wms.; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Luer 1996 drawing fide; Selbyana 29(2): 202-8. 2009 Archila as Oreophila micropetala; Orchid Digest 74(2): 69. 2010. Luer as Penducella micropetala; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 as Penducella micropetala drawing fide

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