Lepanthes trifurcata Luer & R.Escobar 1994 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Breves Luer 1986 SERIES Breves Luer 1996
Photos by © Sebastian Vieira and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
LATER 
EARLY
Common Name The Trifurcate Lepanthes [refers to the petals shape]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Antioquia department of Colombia at elevations around 3400 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped completely by 7, microscopically scabrous, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ovate, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later spring and summer on a filiform, subcongested, distichous, .32 to .48" [8 to 12 mm] long including the .2 to .28 ” [5 to 7 mm] long peduncle, successively single, few flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf with slightly muriculate floral bracts.
"This species is characterized by an ovate, acute leaf with much shorter, few flowered inflorescences. The relatively large flower has acute sepals with the laterals denticulate. The petals are three-pronged, with the prongs narrowly acuminate and diverging. The lip is deeply bifid into falcate lobes that do not form laminae. The narrow bases, or connectives, join to form a narrow body that is connate about midway to the undersurface of the column. The slender appendix recurves from the outside of the body." Luer & Escobar 1994
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Orquideologia Vol 19 #2 pg 119 Luer & Escobar 1994 drawing/photo fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 5 COS 1994 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XIV Systematics of Draconanthes, Lepanthes subgenus Marsipanthes and subgenus Lepanthes of Ecuador Luer 1996 drawing fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019 drawing/photo fide;
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