Restrepia aspasicensium Rchb.f. 1855 Restrepia subgen. Restrepia sect. Restrepia Photo courtesy of Patricia Harding

Common Name The Aspasica Restrepia [A town in the eastern cordillera in Colombia]

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in Colombia and Venezuela at elevations around 1500 to 2300 meters as a miniature sized, warm growing epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 5 to 6 thin, whitish, loose, oblique, acute, compressed, somewhat imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical erect, coriaceous, ovate, subacute, basally cuneate into a twisted petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter, spring and fall on a slender, erect, 1.2" to 1.4" [3 to 3.5 cm] long, a single flower produced successively in a fascile and has a thin, tubular floral bract. This species has the smallest flower in the genus.

Synonyms Restrepia aspasicensis Rchb. f. 1855 [mispelling]; Restrepia dentata Rolfe 1892

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 6 Dunsterville & Garay 1976; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 2 1970; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 4 COS 1992; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIII Systematics of Restrepia Luer 1996

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