Lepanthes empticia Luer & Béhar 1999 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes<
Photo by © Daniel Jimenenz
Photo by © Carl Luer, Used under permission of Epidendra Website CR
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and the Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name The Bought Lepanthes [refers to it being discovered after purchasing from a nursery]
Flower Size .1" [2.5 mm]
Found in Costa Rica without collection data as a mini-miniature sized, caespitose epiphtye with suberect, slender ramicauls enveloped completely by 4 to 6, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, drooping, elliptical, shortly acuminate, gradually narrows below into the cuneate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a short successively few, several flowered inflorescence with an as long as the pedicel floral bractholding the flower on the front of the leaf.
"Distinguished by the weak habit with extremely thin ramicauls and a thinly coriaceous, ovate leaf. The abbreviated raceme is borne on top of the leaf. The flowers are among the smallest in the genus with the sepals less than .08" [2 mm] long, The sepals and transeverse petals are glabrous. The blades of the lip are oblong and less than .025" [1 mm] long and the ovate, ciliate appendix is large and hinged below the sinus." Luer 1999
SynonymsReferences W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR CHECKED Type OK; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVIII Systematics of Pleurothallis subsection Antenniferae, Longiracemosae, Macrophyllae-racemosae and Subgenera Pseudsostelis and Acuminata Luer 1999 drawing fide;Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003
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