Lepanthes elvirae Pupulin 2014 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photos by © Daniel Jimenez and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by © Franco Pupulin and Harvard Papers in Botany, Vol. 19, No. 2, pg 194 Pupulin & Bogarin 2014, Aliae Lepanthes Machogaffenses (Orchidaceae: Pleurothallidinae
LATER 
EARLY
Common Name Elvira's Lepanthes [Costa Rican, Elvira Salas-Pupulin, to acknowledge her continuous support in research and in life current]
Flower Size .24" [6 mm]
Found in Cartago province of Costa Rica on the Caribbean slopes of the Cordillera de Talamanca’s northernmost range in lower montane rain forest, in secondary mature vegetation with remnants of primary vegetation at elevations around 2100 to 2200 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with horizontally arched, spreading to pendent, slender ramicauls enveloped by 4 to 8, closely adpressed, ribbed, glabrous, microscopically ciliate along the ribs lepanthiform sheaths with the obliquely lanceolate, dilated ostia ciliate along the margins and carrying a single, erect, thin, flat, pale green, broadly elliptic, obtusely shortly cuspidate apically, excise, with the tip of the central vein protruding abaxailly within the sinus, rounded and abruptly contracted below into a short conduplicate, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later spring and early summer on a racemose, longer than the leaf, arising on the top of the leaf, peduncle provided with two tightly adpressed, tubular, sparsely muriculate, acute bracts, 2.2" [5.5 cm] long overall, successively single, at least 5 flowered inflorescence with broadly lanceolate, acute, sparsely muriculate, much shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"L. elvirae is reminiscent of L. estrellensis Ames, from which it mainly differs by the glabrous sheaths of the ramicaul (vs. shortly muricate), the petals with lobes distinctly different in size (vs. subequal) and the lobes of the lip held subparallel to the column (vs. perpendicular). In geneeral it is unique in the large size of the flower and the broad and rounded laminae of the lip, contrasting with the slender sepals." Pupulin 2014
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Harvard Papers in Botany, Vol. 19, No. 2, pg 194 Pupulin & Bogarin 2014, Aliae Lepanthes Machogaffenses (Orchidaceae: Pleurothallidinae drawing/photo fide; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide
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