Lepanthes machogaffensis Pupulin & D.Jiménez 2009 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photos by © Daniel Jimenez
TYPE Drawing by © Franco Pupulin and Daniel Jimenez and Orchid Digest. 73: 139-140. 2009
Common Name The Macho Gaff Lepanthes [A locality in Costa Rica]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Cartago Province of Costa Rica in wet montane forests on the Caribbean side of the Cordillera at elevations of 2200 to 2300 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with suberect to gently pendent, slender ramicauls enveloped by 7 to 10 lepanthiform sheaths that are dilated into a acuminate ostium that is minutely ciliate along the margins and carrying a single, apcial, erect, coriaceous, narrowly ovate, acute-subacuminate, green above, purple flushed beneath and cuneate below into the indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a congested, distichous, 1.8" [4.5 cm] long, successively single several flowered inflorescence arising on the front of the leaf with triangular, acute, amplectent, sparsely glandular floral bracts.
"Lepanthes machogaffensis can be compared with the Ecuadoran L. glabella, from which it differs by the almost concolor purple flowers (vs. purple dorsal sepal and yellow lateral sepals), the sparsely ciliate (vs. entire) sepal margins, the narrowly ovate, rounded lower lobe of the petals (triangular, narrowly obtuse in L. glabella), and the lip provided with rheniform-subfalcate blades, uncinate at the apices (vs. oblong with rounded ends) and an external appendix (apical on the sinus in L. glabella)." Franco Pupulin and Daniel Jimenez 2009
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR * Orchid Digest Vol 73 #3 2009 drawing/photo 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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