Lepanthes falx-bellica Pupulin & Bogarín 2011 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
photo by © Mario Velasquez and hisFlickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by Franco Pupulin © and hisThe AOS Website
Common Name The Halberd Lepanthes [refers to the petals being similar in shape to a weapon of the 14 and 15th centuries]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Costa Rica in lower montane forests at elevations around 1700 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with a ramicaul enveloped by 5 lepanthiform, micropubescent, sheaths with obliquely dilated ostia with ciliate margins carrying a single, coriaceous, flat, ovate-elliptic to suborbicular,broadly obtuse rounded, minutely emarginate, abaxially provided with a minute, rounded apicule, shortly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on a racemose, distichous, filiform, borne above the leaf, to .4" [1 cm] long, successively single flowered inflorescence.
"This species is within the complex of Costa Rican endemic species close to Lepanthes monteverdensis which include Lepanthes mentosa and Lepanthes cribbii but this one can be distinguished by the diminutive habit, the small, ovate-rounded leaves, the much longer petals [longer than the dorsal sepal], the body of the lip without a chin, the fully formed, nonlunate blades of the lip, and the small, rounded, external appendix." Pupulin/Bogarin 2011
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * AOS Bulletin Orchids Vol 80 Page 178 2011 photo/drawing fide; Vanishing Beauty; Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide;
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