Trichosalpinx hypocrita (Garay & Dunst.) Luer 1983 SUBGENUS Xenia Luer 1997

Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Common Name The Pretender Trichosalpinx [refers to its similarity to a Lepanthospsis]

Flower Size .08" [2 mm]

Found in northwestern Venezuela and northeastern Colombia at elevations around 2700 to 3000 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender, ramicauls enveloped by 3 to 5,minutely ciliate, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coricaeous, elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring summer and fall on a loose, lightly flexuous, 1.2 to 2.4" [3 to 6 cm] long including the .6 to .8" [1.5 to 2 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously several flowered inflorescence arising from near the apex of the ramicaul

"Very similar to and often confused as a Lepanthopsis but differs in its cylindrical column with the stigma united into a single lobe. The sepals are acuminate and recurved above the middle, the petals are obtuse and the tiny lip is thick with a pair of minute, conical calli on the disc above the middle." Luer 1997

Synonyms Karma hypocrita (Garay & Dunst.) Karremans 2023; *Pleurothallis hypocrita Garay & Dunst. 1976; Tubella hypocrita (Garay & Dunst.) Archila 2000

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XV Systematics of Trichosalpinx Luer 1997 drawing fide;

LANKESTERIANA 23(2). Karremans, Moreno, Gil-Amaya, Morales, Espinosa, Mesa, Restrepo, Rincon-Gonzales, Serna, Sierra-Ariza and Vieira-Uribe 2023 as Karma hypocrita

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------