Lepanthes leporina Bogarín & Pupulin

 Lepanthes leporina Bogarín & Pupulin, Anales Jard. Bot. Madrid 71(1): e001-9, figs. 3C, 7 (2014).

Lepanthes leporina Bogarín & Pupulin, Photo by Brigitte Meyer

Lepanthes leporina Bogarín & Pupulin, Photo by Wiel Driessen

Family:

Orchidaceae.

Synonym Name: 

No synonyms are recorded for this name.

English Name:

The Rabbits Ear Lepanthes

Description: 

Epiphytic, small, caespitose, erect herb, to 2 cm tall. Roots thick, glabrous, 1.8-2.4 mm in diameter. Ramicauls slender, 0.8-1.2 cm long, enclosed by 3-4 glabrous, whitish sheaths. Leaf thinly coriaceous, broadly elliptic-suborbic-ular, rounded, minutely emarginated, with a small abaxial mucro, 9-11 mm long, 7-8 mm wide, cuneate at the base into a petiole about 0.5 mm long. Inflorescence several per growth, produced singly behind the leaf at any new growth season, a loose, distichous, successively few-flowered (to 5 flowers) raceme to 20 mm long; filiform peduncle to 15 mm long, provided with a short tubular, obtuse bract. Floral bracts transversely broadly ovate, amplectent, obtuse, 0.5 mm long, 0.8 mm wide, sparsely and microscopically muriculate; pedicel 1.5 mm long, sparsely muriculate; ovary 1.2 mm long, subtrigonous. Flowers large for the genus, with yellow sepals, faintly suffused with red along the midvein and the upper sepal margins, the petals violet-red, the lat-eral lobes of the lip orange with the base violet, the column and the anther cap violet. Dorsal sepal broadly triangular-ovate, contracted at apex into an acuminate tail 1 mm long, 7.5mm long including the tail, 5.5 mm wide, 5-veined, con-nate to the lateral sepals for 2.5 mm. Lateral sepals connate for two thirds of their length into a broadly ovate, bifid lamina with subacute apices, 7 mm long, 7.5 mm wide, connate to the dorsal sepal for 2.5 mm. Petals transversely bilobed, minutely pubescent, 0.8 mm long, 2.5 mm wide, the upper lobes elliptic-sublanceolate, rounded, 0.8 mm long, 2.2 mm wide, the lower lobes obsolescent, semicircular, ca. 0.5 mm long, 0.7 mm wide. Lip bi-laminate, the blades nar-rowly digitate-falcate, acuminate, 3 mm long, 0.5 mm wide, adpressed to the column, the connectives trapezoidal, the body thin, rounded, with a very thin, incurved, aculeate, glabrous appendix. Column short, truncate, 1.4 mm long, the anther apical, the stigma ventral. Anther cap cucullate, helmet-shaped, apically deeply bilobed. Pollinia 2, elliptic, on two separate, hyaline, rectangular caudicle

Distribution:

Costa Rica.

Ecological:

On twigs of Cupressus lusitanica in disturbed premontane wet forest on the Caribbean slopes of Talamanca range in the region of Tapantí, at about 1050 to 1250 m.

Flowering times:

Blooms in the spring.

Flower size:

1.1 cm

Cultivation:

Type:

holotype JBL (in spirit)

Ref:

orchidspecies.com

ipni.org

powo.science.kew.org

Pupulin, Franco & Bogarín, Diego. (2014). Illustrations and studies in Neotropical Orchidaceae. 6. The Lepanthes guatemalensis group (Pleurothallidinae) in Costa Rica. Anales del Jardín Botánico de Madrid. 71. 10.3989/ajbm.2388.