Lepanthes aprica Catling & V.R.Catling 1988 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Eric Hagsater
Photo by © Noble Bashor
TYPE Drawing by © R Jimenez and El Genero Lepanthes Sw. En Mexico Salazar & Soto 1996
Common Name The Sun-Loving Lepanthes
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Oaxaca state of Mexico at elevations around 1700 to 2600 meters in cloud forests as a mini-miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with arcuate-pendant ramicauls enveloped by 5 to 10, muricate, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate, acuminate, flat, coriaceous, tridentate apically, clear green, the base is broadly cuneate into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring, summer and fall on a single, .4" to 1.2" [1 to 3 cm] long, on the back of the leaf, successively single, 4 to 12 flowered inflorescence with a tubular, glabrous, obtuse-round, coffee colored, scarious bract and distichous, somewhat imbricate, obliquely infundibular, obtuse, glabrous floral bracts.
"Easily recogniazed by the pendent growing plants usually taller than 4" [10 cm] but can be as small as 2" [5 cm], with yellow flowers carrying simetrically bilobed petals with suborbicular lobes, and the lamina of the lip are proportionally ery small. Very characteriztic of the species is the subapical stigma which is visible when looking at the front of the flower. Somewhat similar to L galleotiana with similar habit, leaves, lateral sepals and lip but the appendix is different in its location and in being entire, and transvedrsely rectangular." Salazar & Soto 1996
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; El Genero Lepanthes in Mexico Salazar & Soto Arenas 1996 Drawing/photo fide
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