Lepanthes castilloae Bogarín & Kisel 2014 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
TYPE Photo/TYPE Drawing by Bogarin © and The Orchid Review March 2014
Common Name Castillo's Lepanthes [dedicated to Kath Castillo, an English biologist and botanical research assistant working in the Life Sciences Department, Plants Division at the Natural History Museum, London, for her discovery and collection of the type specimen, and special interest and enthusiasm shown for the species described and orchids in general Current]
Flower Size
Found in Heredia province of Costa Rica in tropical wet forest premontane belt transition on the Caribbean plains at elevations around 751 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm growing epiphyte with an erect to suberect, stout ramicaul enveloped by 3 to 8, micropubescent lepanthiform sheaths with obliquely dilated, acute ostia with ciliate margins and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, conduplicate, abaxially keeled, dark purplish-green, reticulate, avate to suborbicular, slightly auriculate, acute, minutely emarginate, abaxially provided with a minute, rounded apicule, shortly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on borne beneath and shorter than the leaf, peduncle filiform, to about .2" [5 mm] long, rachis .08" [2 mm] long, racemose, distichous, successively single, few flowered inflorescence with conduplicate, ovate, subacute, sparsely muriculate, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"Lepanthes castilloae is most similar to Lepanthes selliana but differs in the purplish-green, reticulate (versus green, non-recticulate), oblong to suborbicular (versus ovate), strongly cuneate narrowing into a petiole 2mm long (versus slightly cuneate) leaves. The inflorescence is shorter than the leaves (versus as long as leaves), the sepals triangular-ovate, denticulate (versus broadly ovate, minutely ciliate), the petals basally red and yellow at the centre (versus orange with thin purple stain), and the blades of the lip glabrous, red (versus pubescent, rose purple). It is also superficially similar to Lepanthes umbonifera Endrés ex Luer, which is described as having dark purplish-green leaves, but differs in the ovate leaves, the umbonate (with a central raised area) lip and the petals with the lower lobe inconspicuous when compared to the upper lobe." Bogarín & Kisel 2014
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * The Orchid Review March 2014 Drawing/photos fide
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