Restrepia aspasicensium Rchb.f. 1855 Restrepia SUBGENUS Restrepia SECTION Restrepia
Photo by © Colin Howe
Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Aspasica Restrepia [A town in the eastern cordillera in Colombia]
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Colombia and Venezuela at elevations around 1500 to 2300 meters as a miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 5 to 6 thin, whitish, loose, oblique, acute, compressed, somewhat imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical erect, coriaceous, ovate, subacute, basally cuneate into a twisted petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter, spring and fall on a slender, erect, 1.2" to 1.4" [3 to 3.5 cm] long, a single flower produced successively in a fascile and has a thin, tubular, as long as th just shorter than the ovary floral bract. This species has the smallest flower in the genus.
"The purple spotted synsepal is only about .4" [1 cm] long. The clavate tip ofthe dorsal sepal is comparitively large. The margins of the petals are variably dentate towards the base, but the processes are proportionally large. The lip is only .16" [4 mm] long, with a proportionally alrge hypochile with uncinate procese about .08" [2 mm] long, half the length of the lip. The epichile is densely muricate-papillose." Luer 1996
Synonyms Restrepia aspasicensis Rchb. f. 1855 [mispelling]; Restrepia dentata Rolfe 1892
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Bonplandia Rchb.f 1855; Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 6 Dunsterville & Garay 1976 drawing not = R elegans; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 2 1970; AOS Bulletin Vol 47 No 7 1978 photo fide; Orchids of Venezuela A Field Guide Dunsterville & Garary 1979 drawing = R elegans; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 4 COS 1992 photo; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 6 COS 1998 errata = R echinata; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VIII Systematics of Restrepia Luer 1996 drawing/photo fide; Libro Rojo de Plantas De Colombia Vol 6 Primera Parte Saenz 2007;
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