Lepanthes empticia Luer & Béhar 1999 SUBGENUS Lepanthes SECTION Lepanthes SUBSECTION Lepanthes SERIES Lepanthes<
Photo by © Daniel Jimenenz
Photo by © Carl Luer, Used under permission of Epidendra Website CR
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and the Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name The Bought Lepanthes [refers to it being discovered after purchasing from a nursery]
Flower Size .1" [2.5 mm]
Found in Costa Rica without collection data as a mini-miniature sized epiphtye with suberect, slender ramicauls enveloped completely by 4 to 6, lepanthiform sheaths and carrying a single, apical, drooping, elliptical, shortly acuminate, gradually narrows below into the cuneate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a short successively few, several flowered inflorescence holding the flower on the front of the leaf.
"Distinguished by the weak habit with extremely thin ramicauls and a thinly coriaceous, ovate leaf. The abbreviated raceme is borne on top of the leaf. The flowers are among the smallest in the genus with the sepals less than .08" [2 mm] long, The sepals and transeverse petals are glabrous. The blades of the lip are oblong and less than .025" [1 mm] long and the ovate, ciliate appendix is large and hinged below the sinus." Luer 1999
SynonymsReferences W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Lankester's Epidendra Website CR CHECKED Type OK; *Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVIII Systematics of Pleurothallis subsection Antenniferae, Longiracemosae, Macrophyllae-Racemosae and Subgenera Pseudsostelis and Acuminata Luer 1999 drawing fide; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003
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