A correction to the Lepanthes guatemalensis group (Orchidaceae: Pleurothallidinae) in Costa Rica, with a new species
Author
Pupulin, Franco
text
Phytotaxa
2021
2021-01-15
480
1
69
78
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.480.1.6
journal article
10.11646/phytotaxa.480.1.6
1179-3163
5414735
Lepanthes edwardsii
Ames, Bot. Mus. Leafl.
1(4): 4. 1933
.
Type
:—
HONDURAS
.
Comayagua
:
Pito Solo
,
Lake Yojoa
, epiphyte in dense forest,
200 ft
alt.,
26 Aug 1932
,
J
.
B
. Edwards 96
(
holotype
,
AMES
).
Fig. 3
.
Epiphytic, small, caespitose, erect
herb
, to
3 cm
tall.
Roots
thick, glabrous, to
2 mm
in diameter.
Ramicauls
slender, 0.8-2.0 cm long, enclosed by 2-3 glabrous, whitish sheaths.
Leaf
thinly coriaceous, elliptic to suborbicular, slightly conduplicate, retuse, with a distinct abaxial mucro,
8-12 mm
long, 5.0-
6.5 mm
wide, shortly cuneate at the base into a petiole about
0.5 mm
long.
Inflorescence
produced singly, longer than the leaf, a loose, distichous, successively flowered (to 7+ flowers) raceme to
2.5 cm
long; filiform peduncle to
18 mm
long, provided with 1-2 short tubular, obtuse bracts; rachis slightly fractiflex.
Floral bracts
broadly ovate, amplectent, subacute, ca.
1 mm
long,
0.5 mm
wide, sparsely muriculate.
Pedicel
1.5 mm
long, glabrous.
Ovary
1.5 mm
long, subtrigonous, smooth.
Flowers
resupinate, large for the genus, with pale translucent yellow sepals, faintly tinged with purple close to the margins, or purplish with a yellow tinge at base, the petals deep purple or yellow, with a faint suffusion of purple on the proximal margin of the upper lobe, the lip purple or yellow with the base suffused with red, the column and the anther cap violet-purple.
Dorsal sepal
broadly triangular-ovate, contracted at apex into an acuminate tail ca.
2 mm
long,
8 mm
long including the tail,
5 mm
wide, 3-veined, connate to the lateral sepals for
2 mm
.
Lateral sepals
narrowly ovate-lanceolate, connate for about half of their length into an ovate synsepal ca.
10 mm
long (including the tails),
7 mm
wide, apically contracted into acuminate tails that are straight to gently curved inward ca.
3 mm
long, connate to the dorsal sepal for
2 mm
.
Petals
transversely bilobed,
1 mm
long,
2.5 mm
wide, the upper lobes narrowly lanceolate-subfalcate, acute,
0.8 mm
long,
2.2 mm
wide, the lower lobes much smaller than the upper lobes, hemielliptic, rounded, ca.
0.7 mm
long,
0.5 mm
wide.
Lip
bi-laminate, the blades narrowly digitate-subfalcate, acuminate, straight, with an obtuse angle on the upper margin, ca.
1 mm
long,
0.2 mm
wide, adpressed to the column, the connectives subquadrate, the body thin, rounded-protruding at apex, with a very thin, up-curved, digitate, acute, glabrous appendix.
Column
short, truncate, to
1 mm
long, the anther apical, bent, the stigma ventral.
Anther cap
cucullate, helmet-shaped, apically deeply bilobedp-retuse.
Pollinia
2, narrowly linear-oblong, strongly complanate, each provided with an oblong, flattened viscidium.
FIGURE 1
.
Lepanthes edwardsii
. Illustration of type by Blanche Ames, from
Ames 1933
.
FIGURE 2
. Comparison of the flower of
Lepanthes edwardsii
(A) and
L. bogariniana
(B). A,
Pupulin 8894
. B,
Karremans 1987.
Photographs by F. Pupulin.
Additional material examined:—
COSTA RICA
.
No
specific locality data recorded, collected by
J
.
Loría
, flowered in cultivation and prepared
4 Apr 2019
,
F
. Pupulin 8894
(JBL-spirit!).
Figs. 2A
,
4
.
Interestingly, the specimen from
Costa Rica
shares with the Honduran type the position and orientation of the triquetrous blades of the lip, whose apices, as Ames noted in the protologue, bent down to become closely appressed to and almost touching the lateral sepals (
Ames 1933: 8
). It seems that this feature is typical of the true
Lepanthes edwardsii
, as this orientation of the blades is absent in the species we previously discussed and illustrated from
Costa Rica
under that name.Apparently, the flowers of
Lepanthes edwardsii
may assume both a resupinate and non-resupinate orientation. Even though Blanche Ames illustrated the flowers of the type plant as regularly non-resupinate (
Fig. 1
), the plants mounted on the
holotype
sheet (
AMES
00100585) present flowers with both kinds of orientation (
Fig. 3
), and in most photographs of this species that we had the opportunity to observe, as well as in the living specimen we studied from
Costa Rica
, the flowers are always resupinate.
The plant that Luer (in
Luer & Thoerle 2012
: fig. 100) illustrated from
Colombia
under the name of
Lepanthes edwardsii
(
Luer 11629,
MO
), with resupinate flowers, appears to be only distantly related to the Honduran
type
and could belong instead to a still undescribed taxon. The blades of lip of the Colombian specimen are thick, hemielliptic, and the appendix is broad and short, while the shape of the petals is closer to that of
L. durikaensis
than to
L. edwardsii
. Another Colombian record of
Lepanthes edwardsii
has been documented by
Misas Urreta (2005: 280–281)
from the Serranía del Baudó, a low mountain range on the Pacific coast, also with resupinate flowers, but according to the author the lobes of the lip are conical, and the illustration shows the ramicauls marginally hispid.
The discovery of a Costa Rican population of
Lepanthes
that can be confidently associated with
L. edwardsii
, leaves without a proper name the taxon that
Pupulin & Bogarín (2014)
discussed previously as local representative of that species. It is therefore proposed here as a species new to science with the name: