Lepanthes minutissima Endres ex Luer 1995 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by Bogarin/TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and Epidendra Orchid Photo Webpage
Common Name The Small Extremely Lepanthes [refers to the plant]
Flower Size .04" [1mm]
Found in Costa Rica at elevations around 1600 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with slender, erect, ramicauls enveloped by 3 to 5, microscopically ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, more or less spreading, purple brown, coriaceous, ovate, obtuse, more or less conduplicate, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on a shorter than the leaf, arising on top of the leaf, peduncle .16" [4 mm] long, rachis .28" [7 mm] long, congested, successively single, few flowered inflorescence with microscopically scabrous, half as long as the pedicel floral bracts.
"Distinguished by the minute habit with a few flowered raceme borne on the dorsum of the thick, little, more or less spreading leaf. The bilabiate flowers are unusual with the lateal sepals connate into a triangular synsepal similar to the dorsal sepal. The extremely minute petals are transversly trilobed as well as the minute lip with the lateral lobes forming vestigal, ovoid blades on either side of the much larger column. The oblong appendix is the third lobe curving under the column." Luer 1995
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Lindleyana 10: 159. Endres ex Luer 1995 drawing fide; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Vanishing Beauty; Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide;
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