Lepanthes schizocardia Luer 1984 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes

Drawing Photos/drawing by © Bogarin, Used under permission of Epidendra Website CR

Leaf and Flower Photo by © Walter Schug

Common Name The Split Heart Lepanthes

Flower Size .2" [5mm]

Found in Panama in cloud forests at elevations around 900 meters as a miniature sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped completely by 5 to 9, dark brown, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, broadly elliptical, purple beneath, subacute to acute, lightly acuminate, cuneate to round basally and contracted into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on a congested, distichous, .2" [55mm] long, successively single, few flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.

"Related to L sotoana and L monte-narae, the habit and flowers of both species are superficially similar, resembling those of L. schizocardia. After studying the type of L. schizocardia, we found both species consistently different. The plants are pendent, lacking the purple reticulation beneath the leaves and the inflorescences borne above the leaf. Lepanthes sotoana can be distinguished from L. montis-narae by the oblong petals (vs. ovate), the lateral lobes of the lip touching apically each other and do not hide the column, which is placed just above the lip (lateral lobes of the lip hide the column and do not touch each other apically) and the appendix of the lip is conic (vs. oblong) and conspicuous, up to 1 mm long (vs. inconspicuous, less than 1 mm long). We have not seen specimens of Lepanthes schizocardia in Costa Rica"

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR Checked Type OK; * Phytologia 55: 192. Luer & Vasquez 1984;

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