Lepanthes estrellensis Ames SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photos by © Franco Pupulin/Holotype by Ames and The Epidendra Website
Common Name The La Estrella Lepanthes [A location in Costa Rica]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Costa Rica in premontane rain forest to cloud forest and disturbed primary forests at elevations around 1800 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with 4 to 6, blackish, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptic, acute, minutely tridenticulate, abruptly narrowing below into the cuneate base leaf that blooms in the winter on a 1/2" [1.25 cm] long, successively single, several flowered inflorecence.
Within subsect. Lepanthes, is most similar to L. tatamae , a species of similarly colored and sized flowers that was recently described from Tatama National Park in western Colombia. From it, can be easily separated by having reniform (vs. elliptical to triangular in L. tatamae) lobes of the lip and the petals with oblong, obtuse lobes (vs. inflexed and ovate to triangular , in L. tatamae)."
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR ; CHECKED Type OK; *Sched. Orch. 4: 30. 1923; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; AOS Bulletin Vol 88 #11 2019 photo fide; Orquideologia 35: 177 2018 2 new species of Lepanthes From the Tatama National Park photo fide; Vanishing Beauty; Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide;
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