Pleurothallis lepidota L.O.Williams 1940 SUBGENUS Unguella Luer 2004
Photo by © Byron Rinke
Photo by Woodstream Orchids and their Woodstream Orchids Website.
HOLOTYPE and Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Website
Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Puntarenas province of Costa Rica and Chiriqui province of Panama slong streams, most often on branched overhanging water at elevations of 1000 to 1300 meters as a small sized, cool and pendent growing, caespitose epiphyte with slender, pendent ramcauls enveloped by 2 to 3 inflated, tublar sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, pendent, sharp margined, purple veined and suffused, elliptical, subacute, acuminate, rounded or cuneate below into the sessile base leaf that blooms in the fall and winter on a pendent, arising through a spathe at the base of the leaf, peduncle .4 to .6" [1 to 1.5 cm] long, rachis 1.6 to 1.8" [4 to 4.5 cm] long, flaccid, distichous, successively several flowered inflorescence with infundibular, as long to longer than the ovary floral bract.
"The leaves hang in overlapping clusters with the racemes hidden beneath with perpendicular, pendent, purple veinede, sharp edged, overlappping leaves. The racemes hangs down for about half their length, the flowers are colorfully striped, the petals are glabrous and narrowly linear and the claw of the three lobed lip articulates with the elongated column foot." Luer 2004
Synonyms Acianthera lepidota (L.O.Williams) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001; Unguella lepidota (L.O.Williams) Luer 2005
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 27(3): 279., t. 32, f. 81-2. L.O. Williams 1940;
The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946 drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986;
Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4:244 Pridgeon and Chase 2001 as Acianthera lepidota
Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Pleurothallis subgenus Acianthera and Three Allied subgenera, A Second Century of new Species of Stelis of Ecuador, Epibator, Ophidion and Zootrophion Luer 2004 as Unguella lepidota;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVII Dryadella and Acronia section Macrophyllae-Fasiculatae Luer 2005 as Unguella lepidota;
Pleurothallids Neotropical Jewels Vol 1 Karremans & Viera 2020 as Acianthera lepidota photo fide
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