Lepanthes auditor is a small, caespitose, epiphytic orchid with slender roots that are notably thicker than the very slender, weak, suberect ramicauls. The ramicauls are 3–7 cm long, enclosed by 5–9 thin, tightly fitting, microscopically scabrous lepanthiform sheaths. The single leaf is thinly coriaceous and more or less spreading, ovate, 25–30 mm long and 10–15 mm wide, with an acute, long-acuminate, prominently tridenticulate apex and a rounded base contracted into a very short petiole 0.5 mm long.

The inflorescence is a congested, more or less secund, successively many-flowered raceme up to 8 mm long, borne on top of the leaf on a filiform peduncle 3–6 mm long; floral bracts 1 mm long; pedicels 1.5–2 mm; ovary 1.75 mm. The sepals are translucent pale yellow, glabrous, with smooth margins. The dorsal sepal is broadly ovate, obtuse, 2.8 mm long and 2.4 mm wide, 3-veined, connate to the lateral sepals for 0.5 mm. The lateral sepals are ovate and oblique, fused for 1 mm into a broadly ovate synsepal 2.8 × 2.8 mm, with the apex cleft for 1 mm into two subacute apices, each 2-veined. The petals are bright yellow, red-purple at the base, microscopically pubescent, broadly cuneate-bilobed, 1 mm long and 2.5 mm wide; the upper lobe obliquely and broadly triangular and obtuse, the lower lobe nearly equal in size and shape — this paired-lobe symmetry, with both lobes broad, rounded, and yellow, is the morphological basis for the species's distinctive "earlike" appearance and its epithet. The lip is yellow suffused with light purple, bilaminate, with the diverging blades thick and oblong-obovate with rounded ends, 1.25 mm long and ciliate; the connectives short and oblong from the bases; the body transverse, connate to the base of the column; the appendix ovoid and long-pubescent, biglandular at the apex. The column is 1 mm long, with dorsal anther and ventral stigma.

Flower characteristics at a glance: small (sepals 2.8 mm, total flower ~5 mm across when open), with translucent pale-yellow sepals forming a hooded backdrop and broadly ovate synsepal beneath. The visual signature is delivered by the four yellow petal lobes flanking the central red-purple-suffused lip and column — the "two pairs of ears" arrangement that gives the species its name. The upper-and-lower lobe symmetry distinguishes L. auditor from many congeners in which the two lobes are markedly unequal.

The morphological characters described here follow Luer & Escobar (1988), as reproduced in Luer & Thoerle (2012) in Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXXII.

The published literature describes Lepanthes auditor as an epiphyte of montane forest in eastern Antioquia. POWO (2026) characterises the species's habitat as primarily the wet tropical biome at the elevations and forest types typical of mature Andean cloud forest. The type locality (Mun. Mesopotamia, between La Unión and Sonsón, 2,400 m) is in the eastern Cordillera Central of Antioquia.

In La Honda, L. auditor has been observed as an epiphyte in the forest interior at approximately 2,400 m — consistent with the type-locality elevation. The species exhibits a patchy distribution at the site: where it is found, it tends to occur as small clustered groups of plants rather than as isolated individuals, suggesting either localised microhabitat preference or limited dispersal at the local scale. Apparently suitable forest patches at the same elevation may contain no auditor at all, while a productive cluster may yield several flowering plants in close proximity.

Lepanthes auditor is endemic to Antioquia, Colombia (POWO, 2026; Idárraga-Piedrahita et al., 2011, Flora de Antioquia; Luer & Thoerle, 2012). The species is documented from the eastern flank of the Cordillera Central in the corridor between Mesopotamia, La Unión, and Sonsón, with both the holotype (R. Escobar 3417, JAUM/MO) and a second collection (C. Luer 17620, MO) traced to plants from Mesopotamia that subsequently flowered in cultivation at Colomborquídeas, the orchid nursery operated by L. & J. Posada and central to so much of the documentary work on the Lepanthes of Colombia.

The La Honda record extends documented occurrence within the same biogeographic corridor of eastern-Antioquian montane forest. Notably, L. auditor shares its type municipality (Mesopotamia) with Lepanthes cactoura, also described by Luer & Escobar from Mesopotamia and also documented at La Honda — a small but meaningful pattern: the same compact eastern-Antioquia landscape that has produced two of the Lepanthes species in this book is now confirmed to share both species with La Honda.

Flowering has been observed in La Honda. The successive many-flowered raceme architecture — up to 8 mm long with flowers produced in sequence rather than synchronously — means that a fertile plant typically presents at least one open flower or developing bud at most times in the local cycle. The available data do not yet support a precise characterisation of the local phenology; systematic observation across a full annual cycle would be required to confirm flowering peaks or quiescent periods. The protologue and subsequent literature do not provide explicit field-flowering-season data for this species.

Recognition rests on the combination of vegetative habit and the diagnostic floral architecture. Vegetatively, the very slender weak ramicauls and thinly coriaceous spreading ovate leaf with a long-acuminate, prominently tridenticulate apex, paired with the inflorescence borne on top of the leaf (rather than behind or below it as in many congeners), are useful starting features.

Florally, the diagnostic character is the symmetric four-lobed petal architecture: each transversely bilobed petal has its upper and lower lobes nearly equal in size and shape, broadly cuneate and rounded, bright yellow with a red-purple basal infusion. With both petals splayed open, the result is four broad rounded yellow lobes flanking the central pink-purple lip and column — the "two pairs of ears" arrangement evoked by the specific epithet (auditor, "a hearer"). This paired-lobe symmetry is unusual within Lepanthes and makes the species unambiguous in the field once the etymology is recognised.

Lepanthes auditor has not been evaluated globally on the IUCN Red List (status NE, Not Evaluated, as of the date of this sheet). At the national regulatory level in Colombia, the species is not listed in Resolución 0126 de 2024 of the Ministry of Environment; it is therefore not classified as threatened under current Colombian environmental law.

"Not Evaluated" is not a statement that the species is safe — it is a statement that no formal assessment has been made. L. auditor is currently known only from a small portion of eastern Antioquia, in a landscape under continuing pressure from agricultural expansion and road infrastructure. The narrow documented range — restricted to the Mesopotamia–La Unión–Sonsón corridor and now La Honda — combined with the species's apparent patchy distribution even within suitable forest, suggests that population persistence depends on the continuity of mature montane forest and intact tree-canopy substrates at approximately 2,300–2,500 m elevation.

For these reasons — and to maintain consistency with the locality-redaction practice applied to the other Lepanthes sheets in this book — the specific location within La Honda where L. auditor has been documented is not published, and precise elevation data beyond the approximate 2,400 m tier are redacted from this sheet. Requests for further locality detail from researchers or conservation practitioners with a legitimate scientific or institutional purpose may be directed to [email protected].