Lepanthes guanacastensis Ames & C.Schweinf. 1930 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photos by © Daniel Jimenez
TYPE Drawing by Luer and Epidendra Orchid Webpage
Common Name or Meaning The Guanacaste Lepanthes [A cordillera of Costa Rica near Nicaragua]
Flower Size .6" [1.5 cm]
Found in Costa Rica and Nicaragua on twigs in exposed conditions in disturbed tropical wet forest, premontane belt transition on the Caribbean slopes of Cordillera de Guanacaste and Tilarán at elevations of 600 to 1500 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3, minutely scabrous, brown sheaths with rather conspicuous, infundibuliform, hispid ostia and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, broadly cuneate spatulate to obovate rounded and minutely tridenticulate apically, cuneate narrowing below intothe short, indistinct petioalte base leaf that blooms in the winter on 1 to 2, longer than the leaf, arising behind the leaf, racemose, loose, distichous, peduncle filiform, provided with a small, tubular sheath in the middle, .44 to 1" [1.1 to 2.5 cm] long, rachis fractiflex, successively single, 2 to 5 flowered inflorescence with infundibuliform, glabrous, shroter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"Lepanthes guanacastensis closely resemble L johnsonii vegetatively but differs greatly in the petals and lip. It is remarkable for its thick fleshy roots, its stout caulose petals and the peculiar side lobes of the lip." Ames & Schweinfirth
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR CHECKED Type OK; * Sched. Orch. 10: 45. Ames & Schweinfurth 1930; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 817 Hamer 1983 drawing fide; Selbyana Vol 10 Orchids of Central America Hamer 1988 drawing fide; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Anales del Jardín Botánico de Madrid 71(1): e001 2014 photo/drawing fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 84 #7 Karremans & Jimenez 2015; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide
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