Lepanthes psyche Luer 1984 SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Mucronatae Luer 1996
Photo by © Daniel Jimenenz
Photo by Walter Teague
HOLOTYPE Sheet by Carl Luer and The Epidendra Website
Common Name The Butterfly Like Lepanthes
Flower Size .1" [2.5 mm]
Found in Panama at elevations of 1000 to 1300 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with an erect ramicaul enveloped completly by 3 to 5 lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apcial, erect, coriaceous, ovate, acute, minutely tridenticulate, gradually narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on several, .8" [2 cm] long, successively single, several flowered inflorescence.
"Vegetatively this species is very similar to L fimbriata. In mature plants the thick, heavy, concave, coppery leaves cause the stem to bend or hang from their perch. The small flowers are disitnguished by the large, overlapping petals with a small marginal tooth. The toothed petals and the agglutinated blades of the lip indicate some relationship with the southh American L mucronata .
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR; * Phytologia 55: 192. Luer & Vasquez 1984; Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide; LANKESTERIANA 12(1), Bogarín, Karremans & Mel.Fernández April 2012. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2012 drawing/photo fide
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