Lepanthes leporina Bogarín & Pupulin 2014 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Daniel Jimenenz
TYPE Drawing by © Franco Pupulin and Anales del Jardín Botánico de Madrid 71(1): e001Bogarín & Pupulin 2014
Common Name The Rabbits Ear Lepanthes
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Costa Rica on twigs of Cupressus lusitanica in disturbed premontane wet forest on the Caribbean slopes of Talamanca range in the region of Tapantí, at about 1100 to 1300 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with slender ramicauls enveloped by 3 to 4, glabrous, whitish sheaths and carrying a single, apical, thinly coriaceous, broadly elliptic-suborbicular, rounded, minutely emarginated, with a small abaxial mucro, cuneate below into the short petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on several, arising from behind the leaf, loose, distichous, peduncle filiform, to .6" [1.5 cm] long, provided wioth a short, tubular, obtuse bract, to .8" [2 cm] overall,successively single to 5 flowered inflorescence with transversely broadly ovate, amplectaent, obtuse, sparsely and microscopically muriculate, much shorter than the pedicel floral bract and carrying resupinate flowers.
"The new taxon can be recognized by the resupinate flowers with yellow sepals, faintly suffused with red, the petals violet, the lip orange, the bifid synsepal with the apices of the lateral sepals not forming tails, the lateral sepals subequal to the dorsal sepal, the petals markedly convex with the upper lobe elliptic-lanceolate and the blades of the lip with connivent apices. It is similar to L. ruberrima but the later can be recognized by the concolorous purple-red flowers, the lateral sepals much longer than the dorsal sepal and the petals flat with the upper lobe triangular and the blades of the lip without connivent apices. Lepanthes schugii is another species similar to L. leporina, however it could be easily separated by the caudate synsepal having the apices of the lateral sepals forming distinct tails and the blades of the lip without connivent apices." Bogarin & Pupulin 2014
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Anales del Jardín Botánico de Madrid 71(1): e001Bogarín & Pupulin 2014 photo/drawing fide; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide
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