Lepanthes oreophila Catling & V.R.Catling 1988 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes

Photo by © Gerardo Salazar

Drawing

Drawing by R Jimenez and El Genero Lepanthes Sw. En Mexico Salazar & Soto 1996

LATE

Common Name The Mountain Loving Lepanthes

Flower Size .12” [3 mm]

Found only in Oaxaca state of Mexico on thin branches and trunks within cloud forests at elevations around 2000 to 2600 meters as mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with ascending to prostrate ramicauls enveloped by 4 to 7 lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, elliptic to ovate-elliptic, acute, green above, purple beneath, apically tridentate distinctly petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on 1 to 4, only one per bloom season, 1/2 to just about as long as the leaf in length, on the back side of the leaf, peduncle .2 to .4” [5 to 10 mm] long, single tubular bracted, rachis moderately dense, flexuous, .4 to .68” [1 to 1.7 cm] long overall, successively 1 at a time, 3 to 15 flowered inflorescence with distichous, obliquely infundibular, acute to shortly acuminate, lepanthiform floral bracts.

"Lepanthes oreophila is distinguished by the small plants with purple backed leaves with the lepanthiform sheaths glabrous to muriculate, the sepals are shortly ciliate and the petals generally have dissimiar lobes with the upper lobesconsiderably bigger and somewhat superposed. Catling y Catling (1988) indicated that this species was similar to a group of species with ciliate sepals which includes L scheidei and L blepharistes. In general terms L oreophila is similsr to the L stenophylla complex but is is not particularily similar to L scheidei." Salazar & Soto 1996

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; El Genero Lepanthes Sw. En Mexico Salazar & Soto 1996 Photo/drawing fide;

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