Lepanthes nymphaliflora A.Doucette, H.Medina & J.Portilla 2024 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes TYPE Drawing

TYPE photo by A Doucette/Drawing by .Doucette, H.Medina & J.Portilla and Orchids (West Palm Beach) 93: 67 A.Doucette, H.Medina & J.Portilla 2024

Common Name The Butterfly-Shaped Flower Lepanthes

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations around 1600 meters as a small sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect, 7.6 to 8" [19 to 20 cm] tall, enveloped by 16, papery, glabrous, tubular sheaths carrying a single erect, with short, spiculate trichomes along the veins beneath, coriaceous, narrowly ovate, acuminate, emarginate, apiculate, revolute towards the base, abruptly contrsacted in to the obtuse, shortly petiolate base leaf that blooms at any time of the year on an erect, peduncle terete, 1.08 to 3.1" [2.7 to 2.8 cm] long, rachis terete, .016 to .048" [.4 to 1.2 mm] long, tightly congested, successively few to several flowered inflorescence arising from the underside of the leaf.

"Most similar to Lepanthes ballatrix but the new species differs in the entire ostia of the lepanthiform sheaths [vs more or less microscopically ciliate], leaves that are pubescent along the veins of the underside of the leaf, [vs glabrous], the petals at an angle near the apex of each lobe turned outward [vs absent] and the transversely obpyriform blades of the lip [vs oblong-lunate]." A.Doucette, H.Medina & J.Portilla 2024

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

Orchids (West Palm Beach) 93: 69 A.Doucette, H.Medina & J.Portilla 2024 photo/drawing fide

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