Lepanthes blepharistes Rchb.f. 1866 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes

Photo by © Daniel Jimenez and His Flickr Costa Rican Orchid Photo Page

Common Name The Eyelash-Like Lepanthes

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Nicaragua and Costa Rica in very wet cloud forests at elevations of 960 to 2100 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cold growing epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped by lepanthiform sheaths with dilated ostia and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptic, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring, summer and fall on a racemose, congested, distichous, .2 to .8" [.5 to 2 cm] long, successively single, several flowered inflorescence that is shorter to just longer than the leaf.

CAUTION This species is said to be the same as L acostea but I just don't see it, if what I have for both species is correct. I have kept them separate pending new references.

Both Lepanthes sandiorum and L. dolabriformis Luer, are related to L. blepharistes Rchb.f. but they can be easily distinguished by the petals with the lower lobe smaller than the upper lobe (vs. equal in length)

CAUTION I have no way of verifying this determination so please use with caution

Synonyms

ReferencesW3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR CHECKED Type ok; *Beitr. Orchid.-K. C. Amer.: 92. 1866; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 815 Dodson 1983 drawing ok; Selbyana Vol 10 Orchids of Central America Hamer 1988 drawing ok; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pg 449 Pupulin 2020 photo/drawing fide;

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