Lepanthes caritensis Tremblay & Ackerman 1993 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Irma Saldaña
Photos by © Luis M Ortiz Jordan and The Orchid Soure Forum Website
TYPE Drawing by © Tremblay & Ackerman and A new species of Lepanthes (Orchidaceae) from Puerto Rico Brittonia 45: 339 Tremblay & Ackerman 1993 Webpage
Common Name or Meaning The Carite Forest Reserve Lepanthes
Flower Size .15" [3 mm]
Found in Puerto Rico in wet montane forests in shady ravines at elevations around 600 to 900 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm growing epiphyte with decumbent to pendent ramicauls enveloped by 1 to 4, brown, lepanthiform sheaths with muricate ribs and minutely ciliate margins and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, margins inrolled, elliptic to oblanceolate, acute to obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms at most any time of the year on 1 to 5, with only two active at any one time, racemose, from the apex of the stem, .04 to 3.6" [1 to 9 mm] long, 1 to 8 flowered inflorescence that bends away from the leaf, with brown, lepanthiform floral bracts.
Very similar to L sanguinea from Jamaica with the same plant habit but very different petals and lips.
Synonyms
ReferencesW3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * A new species of Lepanthes (Orchidaceae) from Puerto Rico Brittonia 45: 339 Tremblay & Ackerman 1993 Webpage drawing fide; An Orchid Flora Of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands Ackerman 1995 drawing fide; Orchid Flora of the Greater Antilles Ackerman 2014
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