Lepanthes brachystele Salazar & Soto Arenas 1996 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © E Greenwood
TYPE Drawing by © R Jimenez and El Genero Lepanthes Sw. En Mexico Salazar & Soto 1996
ALL
EARLY
Common Name The Short Column Lepanthes
Flower Size .2” [5 mm]
Found in Guerrero and Oaxaca state of Mexico within humid pine/oak forests at elevations around 2500 to 3000 meters as miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with ascending ramicauls enveloped by 3 to 4 lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, fleshy, narrowly elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate, acute, slightly convex, green on top, spotted or completely flushed with purple beneath, apically tridentate, shortly and twisted, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the mid winter, all summer and early fall on 1 to rarely 2 per ramicaul, only one per season per ramicaul, always shorter than the leaf, mostly on the top side of the leaf, minutely verrucose and often purple, peduncle thin, to .24 to .32” [6 to 8 mm] long, single tubular bracted, rachis slightly flexuous, successively 1 at a time, 1 to 13 flowered inflorescence with distichous, obtuse, apiculate, membranseous, translucent floral bracts.
Part of the L stenophylla complex but is distinguished by the fleshier, sometimes semiterete leaves, the irregularily muricate lepanthiform sheaths, the proportionally wider petals with the upper lobes truncate, the conspicuously shorter column than the lip laminae and the simple appendix. It is also similar to L attenuata but L brachystele is a larger plant with attenuate leaves, the papillose-muricate lepanthiform sheaths, the longer column than the laminae of the lip and the much larger appendix. Also similar to L mixe but it has minute papillae only visble with great magnification. The petals are very asymetrical and prominently apiculate, the column just short of the length of the laminae of the lip." Salazar & Soto 1996
The photo above is the type photo so it is absolutely correct.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * El Genero Lepanthes Sw. En Mexico Salazar and Soto 1996 Photo/drawing fide;
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