Lepanthes dolabriformis Luer 1996 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photos by © Daniel Jimenez
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Website
LATE
EARLY
Common Name The Axe-Shaped Lepanthes [refers to the petals]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Costa Rica in primary forests at elevations around 2000 meters as a miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with comparitively stout, erect ramicauls enveloped by 5 to 9, minutely pubescent, lepanthiform sheaths with oblique dilated ostia and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, cuneate and contracted below into he petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late winter and early spring on a filiform, congested, distichous, 1.4" [3.5 cm] long, successively many flowered inflorescence holding the flowers at to beyond the leaf with muriculate floral bracts.
Lepanthes sandiorum resembles L. dolabriformis Luer, however it can be distinguished mainly by the smaller plants, less than 2.2" [5.5 cm] tall (vs. up to 3" [7.5 cm]), the smaller flowers with sepals .104 x .056" [2.6 × 1.4 mm] (vs. .16 x .1" [4.0 × 2.5 mm]), the narrower petals, which are filliform, .092" [2.3 mm] (vs. .14 to .15" [3.5 to3.75 mm]) with the upper lobe oblong, rounded, entire, glabrous (vs. obtusely angled with a hatchet-shaped appearance, minutely ciliate, pubescent). Both species are related to L. blepharistes Rchb.f. but they can be easily distinguished by the petals with the lower lobe smaller than the upper lobe (vs. equal in length)" Luer 2012
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR CHECKED Type OK; * Lindleyana 11: 59. Luer 1996. drawing fide; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Lankesteriana 12(2): 108 Bogarin, Pupulin & Karremans 2012
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