Lepanthes cryptostele Salazar & Soto Arenas 1996 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
TYPE Photo by © Eric Hagsater
TYPE Drawing by G Salazar and El Genero Lepanthes Sw. En Mexico Salazar and Soto 1996
LATER
EARLY
Common Name The Hidden Column Lepanthes
Flower Size .1” [2.5 mm]
Found in Guerrero state of Mexico as a somewhat hanging, branch epiphyte in canyons within mesophytic forests at elevations around 1100 to 2200 meters as mini-miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with erect-arcuate ramicauls enveloped by 7 to 8, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thin, coriaceous, slightly recurved, elliptic, abruptly acuminate, olive green above generally purple spotted beneath, 3 veined, apically tridentate, shortly petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later summer and early fall on up to 3 per ramicaul, only one per season per ramicaul, always shorter than the leaf, on the top side of the leaf, peduncle single to 2, tubular bracted, .2 to .4” [5 to 10 mm] long, rachis distichous, congested, somewhat flexuous, to .4” [1 cm] long, successively single, several flowered inflorescence with cucullate-infundibuliform, acute, membraneous, translucent, glabrous to papilose, shortly apiculate floral bracts.
The photo above is the type photo so it is absolutely correct.
"Recognized by flowers with proportionally large, velvety petals with pilose-ciliate margins with the upper lobeovate and the lower lobe obliquely triangular-ovate and more than anything the lip which has a laminar, transluscent, oblong-ovate, shortly bifurcate, glabrous appendix and oblanceolate, oblique smooth and brilliant laminae with pilose-ciliate margins with the apical hairs longer." Salazar & Soto 1996
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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