Lepanthes inaequiloba Ames & C.Schweinf. 1930 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes

Drawing by © Carl Luer and the Epidendra Orchid Website

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Unequal Lobed Lepanthes [refes to the unequal length of the petals]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in San Jose department of Costa Rica in humid montane forests at elevations of 2000 to 2100 meters as a mini-minature to miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 4 to 7, dark, minutely scabrous lepathiform sheaths with inconspicuous erect, hispid ostia and carrying a single, apical, erect, more or less purple suffused beneath, elliptic to ovate-elliptic, , subacute, bluntly tridentate apex, cunearte narrowed below into the petiolate base lesf that blooms in the late fall and early winter on 1 to 2 sometimes as many as 5, filiform, 1/2 to 3/4's the length of the leaf, .88 to 1.32" [2.2 to 3.3 cm] long, densely successively single, few to many flowered inflorescence with shallowly infundibuliform, pubescent on the outer surface floral bracts.

Similar to L turialvae but has very different petals. Closely allied to L barbae but it differs in the ovate instead of lanceoalte sepals, disimilar petals and a longer column.

"Similar to L turialvae But the petals are different. Also similar to L barbae but differs in the ovate instead of lanceolate sepals, dissimilar petals and a longer column." Ames & Schweinfurth 1930

CAUTION!!!Kew has this species and L reflexa as synonyms of L costaricensis. I follow my Costa Rican colleagues in keeping them separate.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Schedul. Orch. 10: 46. AMes & Schweinfurth 1930

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