Lepanthes auriculipetala [S.Vieira-Uribe & N. Gutiérrez] in ed GENUS Lepanthes SUBGENUS Brachycladium SECTION Amplectentes Luer 1994

LCDP Photo by © S.Vieira-Uribe and the Species Orchidacearum 4 Icones Colombianae Website

Common Name The Ear-Like Petal Lepanthes

Flower Size .24" [6 mm]

Found in Santander department of Colombia at elevations around 2480 meters as a small to medium sized, cold, pendant growing epiphyte with an occasionally branching stem with ramicauls enveloped by an infundibular, membraneous, ciliate along the ribs sheaths with cilate, dilated ostia and carrying a single, green suffused with purple along the veins, broadly elliptic, thickly coriaceous, glabrous, rounded, emarginate with a short abaxial central mucro, narrrowing below into a petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on a congested, slender, .04" [1 mm] long, successively 3 to 7 flowered, racemose inflorescence with as long as the ovary floral bracts.

"It resembles the Ecuadorean L cordilabia and L werneri in having an elliptical-ovate, hirsute dorsal sepal; diverging ovate to triangular lateral sepals and an inflorescence positioned almost opposite to the leaves, but can be distinguished by the proportionally larger reniform, hirsute petals with the lobes unequal and by the sub-cordate lip ciliate toward the round apex, with the basal lobes oblong and touching above the column." Sebastián Vieira Uribe & Nicolás Gutiérrez 2020

Synonyms Andinia auriculipetala Sebastián Vieira Uribe & Nicolás Gutiérrez 2020

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Species Orchidacearum 4 Icones Colombianae Viera-Uribe and Guttierez 2020 Website photo fide;

Pleurothallids Neotropical Jewels Vol 1 Karremans & Viera 2020 as Andinia auriculipetala

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