Lepanthes popayanensis Luer & R.Escobar 1999 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Webpage

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Popayan Lepanthes [A beautiful Colonial Town in southern Colombia]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Cauca department Colombia at elevations around 2800 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with slender, erect, ramicauls enveloped by 6 to 8, microscopically ciliate lepanthiform sheaths with long acumiante apices and carrying a single, apical, erect, thinly coricaceous, ovate, acute, contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late fall and early winter on a congested, distichous, .72" [1.8 cm] long including the .4" [1 cm] long peduncle, successively several flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.

"This species is not markedly distinguished by any single character, but can be identified by the combination of the following characters. The habit is small to medium-sized with an ovate leaf borne by ramicauls with long-acuminate apices. The congested inflorescence is borne behind the leaf. The sepals are acute; the lobes of the petals are broad with rounded apices; and the blades of the lip are narrowly oblong and glabrous. The long-pubescent appendix is terminated with a bifid segment." Luer & Escobar 1999

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Orquideologia Vol 21 #2 pg 156 Luer & Escobar 1999 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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