Lepanthes opetidion Luer & R.Escobar 1991 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Webpage

LATER

Common Name The Small Awl Lepanthes [refers to the shape of the leaf]

Flower Size .08" [2 mm]

Found in Narino department of Colombia at elevations around 1800 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect, very slender ramicauls enveloped by 10 to 15, tight fitting lepanthiform sheaths with microscopically ciliate ostia and carrying a single, apical, spreading to deflexed, purple beneath, coriaceous, ovate, acute, linear-long-acuminate, longer than the ovate portion, tridentate, rounded and contracted below into the petiolate base that blooms in the winter on a filiform, congested, distichous, .28 to .44" [7 to 11 mm] long including the .12 to .28" [3 to 7 mm] long peduncle, successively single, several flowered inflorescence arising on the top of the leaf.

"This delicate little species is recognized by the very slender ramicauls that bear a nearly pendent leaf with a long, narrow, apical portion longer than the ovate, basal portion: a very small, yellow flower with denticulate lateral sepals on top ot the leaf: and a pubescent, bilobed lip without an appendix embracing the column." Luer & Escobar 1991

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Orquideologia 18: 131 Luer & Escobar 1991 Drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 drawing fide;

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