Lepanthes talamancana Bogarín & D.Jiménez 2015 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photo by © Daniel Jimenez
TYPE Drawing by © Diego Bogarin and Orchids (Bull. Amer. Orch. Soc.) 84(7): 436–437 Bogarin & Jimenez 2015
LATER
THROUGH LATE
Common Name The Talamanca Cordillera Lepanthes [A Costa Rican mountain range]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Costa Rica in primary and secondary oak cloud forests at elevations around 2418 to 2553 meters as a miniature to small sized, cold growing epiphyte with slender, erect to suberect ramicauls enveloped by 12 minutely ciliate, blackish lepanthiform sheaths with ovate, acute, minutely ciliate ostia and carrying a single, coriaceous, narrowly elliptic to elliptic, acute, conduplicate, abaxially cuneate, emarginate, with a short apiculus, roundish base narrowing into the short, petiolate base leaf that blooms at any time of the year but mostly later spring through late fall on a racemose, distichous, glabrous, peduncle 1" [2.5 cm] long, to 1.16" [2.9 cm] long overall, rachis .16" {4 mm] long, successively single, few flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf, shoerter than the leaf, with ovate, acuminate, conduplicate, membraneous, muriculate, as long as the pedicel floral bracts.
"This species belongs to the Lepanthes disticha complex characterized by the erect ramicauls with blackish, amplectent lepanthiform sheaths with narrow ostia and the coriaceous, ovate, acute to acuminate leaves. Although similar in habit to L. stenorhyncha, L. talamancana can be recognized by the narrowly elliptic to elliptic leaves (rather than ovate), the narrowly ovate sepals (rather than ovate), the petals with the upper lobe oblique ovate to oblong, the lower lobe narrowly ovate to narrowly oblong, acute, falcate, glabrous (rather than the upper lobe triangular, obtuse, the lower lobe triangular, acute, pubescent), the lip with the blades ovate to oblong (rather than the lip with the narrow, incurved blades flanking the column) and the thick, oblong, pubescent appendix (rather than minute, pedunculate; Luer 1995). In habit and flower morphology, L. talamancana is also similar to Lepanthes tachirensis Foldats; however, it can be recognized mainly by the entire sepals (rather than denticulate), the upper lobe of the petals ovate to oblong, rounded (rather than oblong-subtruncate with a prominent fingerlike lobule) and the blades of the lip ovate to oblong (rather than narrowly elliptical). Another closely allied species may be Lepanthes eciliata Schltr., described from western Panama (Schlechter 1913). However, it differs by the narrowly ovate to elliptic, acute, divaricate sepals (rather than ovate, slightly acuminate, not divaricate); the petals with the lobes unequal (rather than equal), the overlapping upper lobes (rather than not overlapping each other) and the falcate lower lobe (rather than straight, oblong)." Bogarin & Jimenez 2015
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * AOS Bulletin Vol 84 #7 Karremans & Jimenez 2015 photo fide;
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