Lepanthes zapatae Luer & R.Escobar 1994 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes
TYPE Photo by Rodrigo Escobar/ TYPE drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaira Website
LATER 
Common Name Zapata’s Lepanthes [Colombian Orchid Enthusiast current]
Flower Size .24" [6 mm]
Found in Antioquia department of Colombia in lowland forests at elevations above 1400 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with comparitively stout, erect ramicauls enveloped completely by 7 to 8, minutely ciliate lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later spring on a filiform, congested, distichous, .52 to .6” [1.3 to 1.5 cm] long including the .32 to .4” [8 to 10 mm] peduncle, successively 2, several flowered inflorescence arising on the back of the leaf with muriculate floral bracts.
"This little species from the Western Cordillera around Frontino is distinguished by relatively small elliptical leaves borne by considerably longer ramicauls. The distichous raceme with relatively long pedicels, borne along the back side of the leaf, often bears two flowers, one on either side of the raceme. The sides of the ovate sepals recurve as the sepals slightly reflex. The large petals are convex with overlapping apices as they lie against the sepals. The blades of the lip are oblong with elongated apices that recurve beneath the column. The blades are very wide with the sinus at their junction above the minute, external appendix." Luer & Escobar 1994
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Orquideologia Vol 19 #2 Luer & Escobar 1994 photo/drawing fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 5 COS 1994 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXXII Luer 2012 drawing fide; Orchids, A Colombian Treasure Vol 3 Ortiz & Uribe 2019;
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