Lepanthes whittenii Pupulin & Bogarín 2004 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
Photos by © Daniel Jimenez
Photo by © Whitten/TYPE Drawing by Bogarin, Used under permission of Epidendra Website CR
Common Name or Meaning Whitten's Lepanthes [American Botanist at University of Florida Current]
Flower Size .12 to 2" [3 to 4 mm]
Found in Costa Rica in very wet montane forests at elevations around 2400 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped completely by 4 to 5, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptic to orbicular, obtuse, abruptly narrowing into the shortly petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on a congested, distichous, successively single, several flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf.
"Lepanthes whittenii is distinguished by the strongly reflexed sepals and petals, the petals with narrowly falcate, acuminate lobes and the large bilaminate lip with the apices overlapping. Differs from L mephistopheles in the apices of the lepanthiform sheaths adpressed tothe stem [vs dilated], the subequal lobes of the petals [vs the upper lobe much larger that the lower], and the differently shaped lip. L quetzalensis has shorter acute petals and narrower lobes of the lip with the convergent apices not overlapping." Pupulin & Bogarín 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR Checked type OK; * Kew Bull. 59: 561. 2004 Drawing fide; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pg 449 Pupulin 2020 photo fide
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