Lepanthes micronyx Luer & R.Escobar 1997
SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Mucronatae Luer 1996
Photo by © Esteban Dominguez Vargas and his Flickr Orchid Photo Webpage
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
LATER 
Common Name The Tiny Claw Lepanthes [refers to the appendix]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Antioquia department of Colombia at elevations around 2700 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with very slender, weak, erect ramicauls enveloped by 12 to 14, microscopically scabrous, tight fitting lepanthiform sheaths with acuminate apices and carrying a single, apical, spreading, thinly coriaceous, narrowly ovate, acute, long-acuminate, cuneate and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later spring on a filiform, congested, disitchous, .4 to 1" [1 to 2.5 cm] long including the .2 to .8" [5 to 20 mm] long peduncle, successively single, many flowered inflorescence arising on the top of the leaf.
"This species is apparently endemic in a mountain pass in the Western Cordillera of Colombia. It is characterized by a weak, very slender ramicaul with a long-acuminate leaf. The congested racemes are borne on top of the leaf, often two simultaneously with unequal peduncles, as is seen in the common L. mucronata Lindl. The flowers of L. micronyx are very small with the sepals .08" [2 mm] or less long. The petals are transversely bilobed with the upper lobes oblong and the lower lobes triangular. The ovate blades of the lip are minute, .024" [0.6 mm] long, considerably smaller than the column they flank. The appendix is shaped like a microscopic, decurved talon." Luer & Escobar 1997
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Orquideologia VOl 20 #3 1997 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 drawing/photo fide;
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