Lepanthes sotoana Pupulin, Bogarín & C.M.Sm.2010 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo/TYPE Drawing by © Bogarin and Epidendra Orchid Website
EARLY
Common Name Soto's Lepanthes [Mexican Botanist early 2000's]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Costa Rica in tropical wet forest, tropical moist forest, premontane belt transition and premontane rain forest, at elevations of 800 and 1400 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with pendent, slender ramicauls enveloped by 4 to 8 , glabrous lepanthiform sheaths with glabreous and non-dilated ostia and carrying a single, coriaceous, dark greyish green, lightly suffused with purple beneath, ovate to orbicular, conduplicate, acute, emarginate with a short apiculus, rounded below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring through early fall on a filiform, distichous, glabrous, .6" [1.5 cm] long, successively flowered inflorescence arising on the top of the leaf with glabrous floral bracts.
"Lepanthes sotoana is closely related to Lepanthes maxillaris Luer from Ecuador. It can be distinguished by the pendent plants (vs. erect), the dark gray green leaves (vs. reticulated in purple beneath), the inflorescences borne above the leaf (vs. beneath the leaf), the acute lateral sepals (vs. acuminate), the lip with subfalcate lateral lobes touching each other, hiding the base of the appendix (vs. falcate, separated, leaving exposed the appendix). L sotoana is also similar to L monti-narae and 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" Pupulin, Bogarin and Sm Lankesteriana 9(3): 427-429, f. 3A-H. 2010
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Lankesteriana 9(3): 427-429, f. 3A-H. Pupulin, Bogarin and Sm. 2010 drawing/photo fide;
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