Lepanthes pterygion Luer & R.Escobar 1984 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Jay Pfahl
TYPE Photo by © Rodrigo Escobar/TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Photos by © Sociedad Colombiana de Orquidelogia
EARLY 
Common Name The Small Wing Lepanthes [refers to the lip]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Antioquia department of Colombia and Ecuador? at elevations around 2000 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 6 to 7, microscopically ciliate lepanthiform sheaths with dilated ostia carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ovate, acute, rounded and contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a filiform, dense, secund, to .48 to 1.12" [1.2 to 2.8 cm] long including the .16 to .8" [4 to 20 mm] long peduncle, successively flowered inflorescence arising on the top of the leaf.
The orchids in the photos by the Sociedad Colombiana de Orquideas have slight differences from the type, the color of the petals are yellow instead of violet but this in itself can never separate a species from another and the apice of the lip is decurved which Luer's drawing also does not show but it is within the limits of a forma or variety instead of a species status.
Lepanthes yubarta is similar but it is larger in habit, the coloration of the yellow sepals, the purple column and the yellow lateral lobes of the lip, the more curved, relatively larger, no lateral expansions on the distal half, also the lateral lobes are glabrous, flat and rounded
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *AOS Bulletin Vol 53 No 7 1984 drawing/photo fide to the first photo; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 5 COS 1994 photo fide; Flora of Ecuador No 88 Lepanthes and affiliates Dodson & Luer 2011 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 drawing/photo fide;
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