Lepanthes cunicularis Luer & R.Escobar 1997 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
TYPE Photo by Rodrigo Escobar/TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Website
EARLIER 
Common Name or Meaning The Rabbit-Like Lepanthes [refers to the large upper lobes of the petals]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Risaralda department of Colombia at elevations around 1800 meters as a miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with slender, bending with the weight of the leaf ramicauls enveloped by 7 to 15, light green, long-pubescent lepanthiform sheaths with markedly dilated ostia and carrying a single, apical, pendent, coriaceous, broadly elliptical, obtuse, abruptly short-acuminate, broadly cuneate and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the earlier summer on a filiform, congested, distichous, 1.32 to 1.65" [3.3 to 4.2 cm] long including the .72 to 1.08" [1.8 to 2.7 cm] long peduncle, successively single, many flowered inflorescence arising from on top of the leaf.
"Characterized by a comparatively heavy leaf that causes the ramicaul to bend. The sheaths of the ramicaul are long-ciliate with markedly dilated ostia. The leaf is broadly ovate with a shortly acuminate apex. The flowers are borne on top of the leaf in a congested raceme. The sepals are obtuse; the large, obovate upper lobes of the petals, like a pair of rabbit ears, obscure much of the dorsal sepal. The falcate lower lobes are much smaller. The lip is not remarkable, the small appendix being borne in an acute sinus between cuneate connectives that bear narrow, obtuse blades." Luer & Escobar 1997
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Orquideología Vol 20#3 pg 289, 291, f. 116 Luer & Escobar 1997 Drawing/photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 Luer drawing fide; Orchids A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 drawing/photo fide;
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