Lepanthes ostraconopetala Luer & Hirtz 2009 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Elongatae 1993

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Webpage

Common Name The Ostracon Lepanthes [refers to the convex petals resembling a low rounded shell]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Narino department of Colombia in forests at elevations around 3200 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by 11 to 18 microscopically scabrous lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical-ovate, acute, acuminate, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a slender, sublax, 6.4 to 6.8" [16 to 17 cm] long including the .8 to 1.2" [2 to 3 cm] long peduncle, successively single, many flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.

"This large species, apparently endemic at a high altitude in southernmost Colombia, is vegetatively indistinguishable from Lepanthes illex, which is widely distributed in northern Ecuador. Both species are characterized by ramicauls usually longer than twenty centimeters, and a usually large, acuminate leaf surpassed by a successively many-flowered raceme of flowers with narrowly acute sepals. Lepanthes ostraconopetala is distinguished by convex petals with recurved margins with an apiculum between the lobes. The blades and body of the lip are narrower, and the tip of the minute appendix is microscopically bilobed." Luer 2009

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Selbyana 30: 11 Luer & Hirtz 2009 drawing fide Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019;

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