Lepanthes dactyla Garay 1971 GENUS Lepanthes SUBGENUS Brachycladium SECTION Amplectentes Luer 1994

TYPE Photo by © Gilberto Escobar

Drawing Original Drawing by © Padre Pedro Ortiz Conserved at the Herbario de la Universidad Javeriana Bogota Colombia

Type sheet drawing and photo Original Drawing and Type Sheet © Courtesy of The Epidendra Website

Common Name The Finger Lepanthes [refers to the petals shape]

Flower Size .12" [3mm]

Found in Antioquia department of Colombia in scrub cloud forests on road banks at elevations around 1700 to 1900 meters as a small sized, cool growing epiphyte with a pendant, long-repent chain of abbreviated ramicauls enveloped by a long ciliate, lepanthiform sheath and carrying a single, apical, descending, coriaceous, ciliate, sparsely pubescent, broadly elliptical, obtuse, 3 to 5 veined, cuneate into the petiolate base leaf that blooms on a slender, upcurved, .08" [2mm] long, single flowered inflorescence with an apiculate floral bract.

CAUTION!!!!! Carl Luer, in his drawing of 1994, confused Garay's L dactyla of the Cenral Cordillera with another, at the time, unnamed species. That species is now named Lepanthes lueri and is found on the eastern Cordillera, has thinner petals and thin hairs only towards the apices instead of thicker hairs all along the thicker petals of L dactyla

Synonyms Andinia dactyla (Garay) Karremans & S.V.Uribe 2016; Brachycladium dactylum (Garay) Luer 2005; Neooreophilus dactylus (Garay) Archila 2009; Oreophilus dactylus (Garay) Archila 2009; Penducella dactyla (Garay) Luer 2010

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Orquideología 6(1): 13 Garay 1971 Photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum XI Systematics of Lepanthes Subgenus Brachycladium and Pleurothallis subgenus Aenigma, Elongatia and Kraenzlingella Luer 1994 drawing not! = L lueri; Orquideas Nativas del Tachira Cesar Fernandez 2003 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVII Dryadella and Acronia section Macrophyllae-Fasiculatae Luer 2005 as Brachycladium dactylum; Selbyana 29(2): 203 Archila 2009 as Oreophylus dactyla; Orchid Digest Vol 74 #2 Luer 2010 as Penducella dactyla; Orquideas de Farallones de Cali Galindo-Tarazona, Haelterman, Zuluaga Trochez and Sebastian Moreno 2020 as Andinia dactyla photo fide

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