Lepanthes markchooana A.Doucette, H.Medina & J.Portilla 2023
SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Breves Luer 1986 SERIES Breves Luer 1996
Photo by © A Doucette
TYPE Drawing by © A.Doucette, H.Medina & J.Portilla
LATER 
Common Name or Meaning Mark Choo's Lepanthes [Assitant Curator of the National Orchid Garden in Singapore current]
Flower Size .08" [2 mm]
Found in Morona Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations around 1200 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with an erect, terete stem enveloped by 7 to 10, papery, shortly pubescent, trumpet-shaped lepanthiform sheaths with a circular, dilated ostia carrying an erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, obtuse, apiculate, obtuse and abruptly contracted below into the shortly petiolate base leaf that blooms at most any time of the year on an erect, arising on the underside of the leaf, peduncle terete, .28 to .64" [7 to 16 mm] long, enveloped by membraneous, ovate, acute, truncate bracts, rachis terete, .032 to .076" [.8 to 1.9 mm] long, congested, successively 1 to 2, to 10 flowered inflorescence carrying resupinate flowers.
" Most similar to Lepanthes caloura but distinguished by the narrowly elliptical versus elliptical leaf with a green underside versus purple, a glabrous ovary versus lightly spiculate, the lateral sepals fused for their length versus free and contracted into two divergent tails and the straight lower lobes of the lip versus incurved around the apex of the column. Also similar to Lepanthes usitata but distinguished by the circular ostia of the stem sheaths, the semicircular dorsal sepal contracted into a short tail and the lateral sepals fused for their length, otherwise they are similar." A.Doucette & J.Portilla 2023
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * AOS Bulletin Vol 92: 374 A.Doucette & J.Portilla 2023 photo/drawing fide
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