Lepanthes otopetala Luer 1991 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Daniel Jimenenz
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer © and The Epidendra Website
Common Name The Ear-Shaped Petal Lepanthes
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Costa Rica and Panama at elevations around 2450 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 4 to 6, closely adpressed, microscopically ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying erect, coriaceous, very dark purple-green above leaves that are pinkish beneath, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter and spring on a slender, congested, distichous, 1.2" [3 cm] long, successively many flowered inflorescence with echinate floral bracts.
Distinguished by the purple, elliptical leaves longer than the inflorescence, a congested, distichous raceme, minutely denticulate sepals with the dorsal broadly ovate and acuminate and with the laterals nearly free and diverging and especially the petals with a large, ear-like upper lobe and a much smaller lower lobe." Luer 1991
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Lindleyana 6(2): 76. Luer 1991 drawing fide; Lankesteriana 12[3]: 207 - 214 Bogarin & Karremans 2014 photo/drawing fide; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pg 449 Pupulin 2020 photo fide;
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