Lepanthes dorsalis Lindl. 1858 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

Collection Sheet Collection Sheet by © Wright/Herbarium Oakes Ames - Harvard

Common Name The Dorsal Lepanthes [refers to the dorsal sepal]

Flower Size .16" [4 mm]

Found only in Holguin and Santiago de Cuba provinces of Cuba in broadleaved forest patches on mountain summits and along streams at elevations around 350 meters as a mini-miniature sized, hot growing, caespitose epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 5 to 7, dark, long-ciliate lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erct, coriaceous, sloghtly convex, ovate, acute to subacute, broadly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on an erect, twice as long as the leaf, from beneath the leaf, peduncle filiform, .4 to .8" [1 to 2 cm] long, rachisto .48" [1.2 cm] long, congested, disitchous, successively single, many flowered inflorescence with muricate, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.

"Characterized by the peduncle, about as long as the ovate leaf with the congested raceme continuing beyond the leaf. The dorsal sepal is concave and obtuse, the laterals diverging and acute. The upper lobe of the petals is reduced to a small hemisphere while the lower lobe is about 4 times longer. The lip is trnsversely trapeziform with a minute pubescent appendix on the central margin of the trnsverse apex." Ackerman 2014

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orchid Flora of the Greater Antilles Ackerman 2014 drawing fide

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