Lepanthes auspicata Luer & R.Escobar 1999 Photo by © La Reserva Natural "El Refugio" Website

Type drawing Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Website CR

Common Name or Meaning The Fortunate Lepanthes [refers to the fortunate retention of the appendix]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Valle de Cauca and Choco' Colombia in secondary forests at elevations of 2200 to 2300 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with very slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 5 to 8, microscopically cellular lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrolwy ovate, revolute margined, red purple veined, acute, long-acuminate, slightly dilated and trifurcate apically, cuneate below into the subsessile base leaf that blooms in the winter on a slender, very dense, distichous, .52 to .62" [1.3 to 1.6 cm] long including the .2 to .32" [5 to 8 mm] long peduncle, successively several flowered inflorescence arising on the top of the leaf with lightly muricate floral bracts.

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Orquideología 21(2): 138–140, f. 132 Luer & Escobar 1999 drawing fide

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