Lepanthes braccata Luer & Dod 2003 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and Selbyana 24:11 Dod ex Luer 2003

LATER

Common Name The Trouser Wearing Lepanthes [refers to the overlapping truncate apices of the lip]

Flower Size to .2" [5 mm]

Found in the Dominican Republic in montane forests at elevations around 1700 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 6 to 7, long-ciliate lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, purple beneath, ovate to suborbicular, subacute to obtuse, cuneate below into the twisted, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later spring on an erect, borne behind the leaf by a filiform peduncle .2 to .28" [5 to 7 mm] long, rachis .44" [1.1 cm] long, congested, distichous, successively single, many flowered inflorescence with minutely echinate, as long as the pedicel floral bracts.

"This species, apparently endemic in western Dominican Republic, is closely allied to the frequent and sympatric Lepanthes purpurata, but distinguished from the latter by larger and longer sepals, and a lip with the apical lobes truncate and overlapping, and extending well beyond the column. The species is characterized by a small or medium-sized habit with a very congested raceme borne behind an ovate, sub-acute leaf. The flowers are comparatively large with acute sepals .28" [7 mm] long. The lobes of the petals are narrowly oblong with the upper lobes crossing above the lip and column. The lip is bilobed without blades. The basal corners are round and surround the short column, which reaches only half way to the apex. The apex is split into two subquadrate, truncate lobes that partially overlap, concealing a small appendix in the sinus between the lobes." Luer 2003

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Selbyana 24: 10 Dod ex Luer 2003 drawing fide; Orchid Flora of the Greater Antilles Ackerman 2014

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