Lepanthes trinaria is a small, tufted epiphytic orchid. The Latin diagnosis published with the protologue characterizes the plant as small, with a few-flowered racemose inflorescence shorter than the ovate-cordate leaf; sepals broadly ovate and acute, the dorsal sepal sparsely ciliate; petals long-trifurcate — divided into three elongate, narrow segments with the lateral two prolonged and ciliate; the lip with elliptical blades, broad cuneate connectives, and a small ciliate appendix; with a separate, oblong, pubescent, bilobed appendix on the lip body. The protologue's brief English text adds that the lip body is broad, connate to the column near the middle, and that the appendix is oblong and protruding with a bilobed apex.

Photographs of the La Honda material show the floral characters that give the species its name unambiguously: a 4-pointed star formed by the broadly ovate, acuminate sepals (greenish-bronze with reddish veining), and at the centre a small dark-red column flanked by petals whose lateral segments project outward and slightly upward as long, hair-fringed orange-red filaments — the "antennae" of the trifurcate petals — with the smaller central segments visible between them as short paired projections. A small bract subtends the developing next bud below the open flower, consistent with a "few-flowered raceme" producing flowers in succession.

The morphological characters described here follow Luer & Escobar (1997); the species is also treated by Luer & Thoerle (2012) in Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXXII.

The published literature documents Lepanthes trinaria from a single locality: cloud forest at 2,700 m, north of the pass between the municipalities of Urrao (Antioquia) and Carmen de Atrato (Chocó), where the holotype was collected as an epiphyte in December 1994 (Luer & Escobar, 1997). No other published collections are known to us. POWO (2026) reports a single-point elevation of 2,700 m for the species, reflecting this single documented site.

At La Honda the species has been observed on twigs, branches and trunks within mature secondary forest, as scattered rare individuals rather than in patches or aggregations. Plants are easy to overlook: the leaves are small and the flowers, though striking when seen at close range, are tiny and visually inconspicuous against the dark substrate of mossy bark. The local elevation is lower than the published 2,700 m; this differs from the type locality both in cordillera and in altitudinal band, and the ecological inference from a single documented original site to a new site at lower elevation merits caution and further observation.

Lepanthes trinaria is endemic to Colombia, with the only published record from the department of Antioquia (POWO, 2026). The holotype was collected at 2,700 m, on the Cordillera Occidental, in cloud forest north of the pass between the municipalities of Urrao and Carmen de Atrato — a high pass on the route that crosses the Cordillera Occidental between the eastern slope (Urrao, Antioquia) and the western slope (Carmen de Atrato, Chocó). The collection was made on 12 December 1994 by R. Escobar, F. López and W. Teague; the plant flowered in cultivation at Colomborquídeas in May 1995, and the species was published by Luer & Escobar (1997) in Orquideología 20(3): 311 from the cultivated material (C. Luer 17530, Holotype MO).

The La Honda record extends the known range of Lepanthes trinaria eastward, across the Cauca Valley and onto the Cordillera Central, into the eastern-Antioquia massif at El Carmen de Viboral. To our knowledge, this is the first documented record of the species on the Cordillera Central: the type and only published collection lies on the Cordillera Occidental, separated from La Honda by an entire intermontane valley and the full width of the Cordillera Central. The geographic significance of this record is therefore considerable. We present it here pending verification by a Colombian Lepanthes specialist, and we have set this sheet's cordillera field to include both Occidental (the published range) and Central (the La Honda observation) until the identification is independently confirmed.

Flowering has been observed in La Honda on the few individuals encountered, with single open flowers and additional bracts subtending developing buds along the same short raceme axis — consistent with the "few-flowered raceme" of the original diagnosis. Because the species is rare at the local site and has been observed on a limited number of occasions, seasonality at this site cannot be reliably characterised from the available data. Systematic observation across a full annual cycle would be required to describe the phenology of the local population.

Recognition rests squarely on the petals: each is divided into three long, narrow, hair-fringed segments, with the two lateral segments dramatically prolonged into "antennae" that project outward and slightly upward from the central column. In life this character is unmistakable — there is no other Lepanthes documented at La Honda with petals of this geometry. The flower's other features support the identification: a 4-pointed star formed by broadly ovate, acuminate sepals (the dorsal sparsely ciliate); a central red column with a small pinkish lip bearing oblong elliptical blades and a small ciliate appendix; an oblong, pubescent appendix with a bilobed apex on the lip body, connate to the column near the middle. The leaf is ovate-cordate and shorter than the inflorescence-bearing peduncle, also consistent with the original diagnosis. The genus Lepanthes as a whole is diagnosed by the lepanthiform sheaths on the ramicauls.

Lepanthes trinaria has not been formally evaluated globally on the IUCN Red List (status NE, Not Evaluated, as of the date of this sheet); however, recent automated extinction-risk modelling has flagged the species as predicted-threatened with confident assignment (Bachman et al., 2024, as reported by POWO, 2026). At the national regulatory level in Colombia, the species is not listed in Resolución 0126 de 2024 of the Ministry of Environment.

The conservation case for this species deserves particular emphasis. Until the La Honda observation, L. trinaria was known to science from a single locality — a single point on the Cordillera Occidental, at high elevation. A species with this kind of footprint in the published literature is, by definition, narrowly distributed; even a single disturbance event at the type locality could affect a substantial fraction of the documented global population. Miniature orchids of the genus Lepanthes remain subject to poaching for specialist collectors, and rarely-encountered species with conspicuous flower architecture are particularly attractive targets. The La Honda population is sparse — scattered rare individuals rather than aggregations — and is geographically disjunct from the type locality across an entire intermontane valley and a major mountain range; the conservation value of confirming its presence in the eastern-Antioquia subregion is significant, both for the species itself and for what it implies about the connectivity of cloud-forest Lepanthes communities across the cordilleras.

For these reasons, the specific location within La Honda where L. trinaria has been documented is not published, and elevation data 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].