Lepanthes melanocaulon Schltr. 1923 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Julio Larramendi
Collection Sheet by © Ekman and the Harvard Herbarium Website
Common Name The Black Stemmed Lepanthes
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in northeastern Cuba as a mini-miniature sized, caespitose, warm to cool growing epiphyte with an erect, slender, ramicaul enveloped by up to 11, brown black, horn shped, acumionate leapanthiform sheaths with muriculate ostia, and carrying a single, apical, violet beneath, elliptic-ovate, coriaceous, subacuminate, minutely tridenticulate, neate below intothe subsessile base leaf that blooms at any time of the year on 1 to 4, congested, distichous, arising on the abaxial side of the leaf, .24 to .4" [.6 to 1 cm] long, much shorter than the leaf, successively single, several flowered inflorescence with dilated, acuminate, papillose-muricate, much shorter than the pedicels floral bracts.
"Similar to L dressleri but the new species is characterized by ovate to elliptical leaves carried by slender ramicauls with dark, close fitting, non-dilated sheaths. The congested many flowered raceme is most likely on the back of the leaf. The sepals are ovate, subacute to acute and the transversely bilobed petals have a minute apiculum on the outer margin between the obliquely truncate lobes. The lip laminae are incurved apically without forming blades.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Moscosoa 6: 170 Hespenh. & Dod 1990 ; Orchidaceae Antillanae Nir 2000; The Orchids of Cuba Llamacho and Larramendi 2005 photo fide; Orchid Flora of the Greater Antilles Ackerman 2014
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