Lepanthes o A Doucette 2023 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes Luer 1996
Photos/TYPE Drawing by © Alfonso Doucette
Common Name The new species is named for O, the protagonist of Anne Desclos’ novel, Histoire d’O, and the subject of Françoise Hardy’s song, Chanson d’O, given the fancied similarity of the labellum’s red margins and sepals’ purple stripes to the makeup and markings borne by O]
Flower Size .24" [6 mm]
Found in Huanuco department? of Peru as a mini-miniature to miniature sized epiphyte with terete, erect ramicauls enveloped by 7 to 9, papery, infundibular, microscaopically pubescent, shortlepanthiform sheaths with dilated ostia and carrying a single, apical, spreading, coriaceus, dark green to purple above, usually mostly purple beneath, apiculate, rounded basae abruptly contracted into a shortly petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a terete, .598 - .7" [14.8 - 17.5 mm] long, arising from atop or beneath the leaf, enveloped by membraneous, ovate, acute, truncate bracts, rachis [.032 to .076" [.8 to 1.9 mm] long, congested, successively single, to 13 flowered inflorescence carrying resupinate or nonresupinate flowers.
Similar to L applanata but distinguished by the obtuse (vs. acute) leaf apices; low, denticulate carina (vs. smooth) ovary; longer dorsal sepal .26 to .292" [6.5 - 7.3 mm] long vs..16" [ 4 mm] long); minutely denticulate (vs. entire) sepal margins; microscopically pubescent (vs glabrous) petals with triangular (vs. suborbicular) lower lobes; and the microscopically pubescent (vs. glabrous) lip with transversely obpyriform (vs. elliptical) lobe." A Doucette 2023
An interesting side note: This is the first species ever to have a single letter as its species name. There is nomenclature rule on the maximum number of letters allowed, 30, but not a minimum so the name is legal.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * AOS Bulletin Orchids Vol 92 4:215 Doucette 2023 drawing fide;
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