Lepanthopsis legadensis L.R.Zandona & E.L.M.Catharino ex A.Doucette & Pfahl, sp.nov. 2020 SUBGENUS Lepanthopsis SECTION Lepanthopsis
Inflorescence TYPE LCDP Photo, Photographic plate mounted from photos of the plant in cultivation/Photo All by © Luciano Zandoná
Common Name Common Name: The Legado Lepanthopsis [A Reserve in Brazil, Legado das Águas, Atlantic Forest reserve located in the Vale do Ribeira, belonging to the Votorantim Group, where the plant was collected] ]
Flower Size .34 to .68" [8.5 to 10.7 mm]
Type: BRAZIL. Cultivated material gathered from São Paulo, Miracatu, Legado das Águas, Zandoná, within the inner canopy of trees ca. 15 m off the ground, 650—700 m, L.R.Zandoná, A.G.Maragni, & M.M.F.Jesus [SP 498030], 4/15/18, (holotype, SP).
Found in Sao Paulo Brazil within the inner canopy of trees at elevations of 650 to 700 meters as a miniature sized, warm growing caespitose, epiphyte with a few, thick, terete, cream, colored roots arising basally on terete, short stems , enveloped by three, glabrous, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying erect, coriaceous, oblong to obovate, rounded apex and cuneate base, attenuated into a pseudo-petiole, irregularly marked on the abaxial surface leaves that blooms in the fall on a terete, peduncle 3.4 to 3.8" [8.5 to 9.5 cm] long, a simultaneously 20 flowered inflorescence with tubular floral bracts and carrying wine colored flowers that are yellowish towards the base of the membranous, carinate, long-acuminate sepals;
Diagnosis: The new species is most similar to Lepanthopsis acuminata Ames 1938 but can be distinguished by the smaller plant size, the long peduncle, more connate sepals, and the more broadly cordate lip.
Discussion: Lepanthopsis legandensis is the fourth species of Lepanthopsis known to occur in Brazil. The other species of Brazilian Lepanthopsis include Lepanthopsis densiflora (Barb.Rodr.) Ames 1933, Lepanthopsis floripecten (Rchb. f.) Ames 1933, and Lepanthopsis vellozicola R.C.Mota, F.Barros & Stehmann 2009 which can be immediately distinguished from the new species by lacking attenuate sepals, which only appear to occur in three other species of Lepanthopsis: L. acetabulum Luer, L. acuminata Ames, L. peniculus (Schltr.) Garay. The new species can be distinguished among Lepanthopsis species with attenuate sepals by the long peduncle and fewer stem nodes.
Nomenclature note; When the description for Lepanthopsis legandensis ( Zandona et al. 2019) was discovered on the bioRxiv platform we searched online databases (IPNI, Tropicos, Plants of the World Online) to see if we could locate this record. We did not, nor did we find any species of Lepanthopsis matching this species on these online databases published in 2018 to the present. We reached out to the corresponding author, Zandona, using the email provided in the manuscript to see if there were plans to effectively publish the name as a year had passed since the preprint appeared at the time of writing this validation paper. After waiting a week for a response from Zandona we decided to proceed with the validation of the name here.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Zandona, L.R., Catharino, E.L.M., Maragni, A.G., & Jesus, M.M.F. 2019. [A new species of Lepanthopsis (orchidaceae, Pleurothallidinae) in the Atlantic Forest in Sao Paulo, Brazil.] bioRxiv. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/703694v2.full.pdf+html (accessed: 9 Aug 2020.)
