Lepanthes octopus Luer & R.Escobar 1997 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by Sebastian Vieira and his Flickr Orchid Photo Webpage
TYPE Photo by Rodrigo Escobar/TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Webpage
LATER 
Common Name The Octopus Lepanthes [refers to the elongate lobes of the petals and an allusion to their being tentacles]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Santander department of Colombia at elevations around 1800 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 6 to 8, minutely ciliate lepanthiform sheaths with oblique ostia and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, cuneate and contracted below into the petiolate base that blooms in the later spring on a filiform, congested, subsecund, .52 to .6" [1.3 to 1.5 cm] long including the .28 to .36" [ 7 to 9 mm] long peduncle, successively single, several flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.
"This species, apparently endemic in the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia, is most similar to L. alcicornis from the Central Cordillera. Lepanthes octopus is distinguished by the elliptical leaves instead of ovate-acuminate. The lateral sepals are connate into an ovate synsepal, unique in the subgenus. As in L. alcicornis, the petals are divided into four segments, but those of L. octopus are filamentous, similar to many species of the subgenus, the lip is broadly cordaIe with a broadly rounded, minutely incised apex." Luer & Escobar 1984
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Orquideologia Vol 20 #3 pg 305 Luer & Escobar 1997 drawing/photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide; Orchids A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 photo fide;
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