Lepanthes gratiosa Pupulin & D.Jiménez 2009 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photos by © Daniel Jimenez
TYPE Drawing by © Pupulin & Jimenez
Common Name The Delightful Lepanthes
Flower Size .15" [3mm]
Found in Costa Rica on the Caribbean side of the Cordillera in wet montane forests at elevations around 2100 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphtye with suberect to erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 6 to 10, slightly dilated apically, lepanthiform sheaths with acute, glabrous ostia and carrying a single, apical, erect, elliptic, acute, thinly subcoriaceous, cuneate below and contracted into the indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a congesated, distichous, 2" [5 cm] long, successively single, several flowered inflorescence arising on the front of the leaf with a broadly ovate, acuminate, amplectant, sparsely glandular floral bract.
"Lepanthes gratiosa is most similar to L. sigsigensis, from southern Ecuador, and to other species of Lepanthes with flowers borne on a long inflorescence much longer than the leaf. It differs from L. sigsigensis by the congested (vs. loose) raceme, the distinctly glandular-denticulate (vs. entire) sepal margins, the narrowly linear-falcate, attenuate (vs. oblong, obtuse) lower lobe of the petals, and the minutely papillose (vs. glabrous) blades of the lip. Like L. sigsigensis, L. gratiosa is apparently restricted to cold and constantly wet cloud forests at high elevations." Pupulin & D.Jiménez 2009
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Orchid Digest Vol 73 Vol 3 Pupulin & D.Jiménez 2009 photo/drawing fide; Lankestriana 11(3): 185-205 Bogarin 2011 Photo fide; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide
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