Leptotes, abbreviated Lpt in horticultural trade, is a genus of orchids formed by nine small species that grow in the dry jungles of south and southeast Brazil, and also in Paraguay or Argentina.

They are small epiphytic plants of caespitose growth that sometimes resemble little Brassavola, as they share the same type of thin terete leaves, though they are more closely related to Loefgrenianthus.

Besides being cultivated for their ornamental value, there are records of the flowers and fruits of Leptotes bicolor being used as a substitute for vanilla in milk, ice cream, tea and candies.

[2] The species in the group that are characterized by wide open flowers, such as Leptotes tenuis and L. pauloensis, are more frequently found in montane cloud forests.

They have variable characteristics and can be short or long, erect or hanging, dark green or purple, and often have a wrinkly surface and a deeper ridge in the face.

Flower colors are generally greenish, white or variable shades of pink and the labellum (a special petal attractive to pollinators) can be spotted in pale yellow, light purple or lilac.

Cássio van den Berg postulates, judging from the colors and morphology of the flowers, that bees are the primary agent,[2] while other orchidologists suspect pollination by hummingbirds is more important.

[3] As the roots of Leptotes rot easily with excessive humidity, the best results for their culture are achieved when they are mounted on plaques of vegetal fiber or tree cork.

In its description, dated the same year, Lindley suggests the name of Leptotes, from the Greek λεπτότητα for mild, delicate, in reference to the appearance of the plant's flowers.

He affirmed that Leptotes was similar to Tetramicra, from which it is distinguished by the structures of the pollinarium and by the smaller lateral lobes of the lip petal; and because they have no calcar attached to the ovarium.

[8] When reviewing all the known species of Leptotes at the time, in 1990, Carl Withner revisited the drawings published by Lindley and identified additional differences between L. bicolor and L. serrulata, describing how the latter always bears more flowers, with up to seven per inflorescence, which is also much longer.

His account described a highly fragrant little species of orchid and he found some colonies with hundreds of plants living epiphytically along the banks of the Dourado and Sapucai rivers, nearby the city of Alfenas, in Minas Gerais.

[14] Robert Allen Rolfe received from Brazil, also without information of locality, a plant similar to the Leptotes tenuis species described by Reichenbach over 20 years earlier.

While living in Brazil, the Danish Botanist Johan Albert Constantin Löfgren received an Orchid from Itatiaia, Rio de Janeiro, with flowers reminiscent of the Leptotes, although its lip petal formed a pouch.

In 1954, one of the associates of Círculo Paulista de Orquidófilos, an orchid society in São Paulo, presented a lecture where he talked informally about the innumerable varieties of Leptotes that he had collected throughout the years.

[19] In 2004, Eric Christenson identified at least two of the several varieties mentioned in the lecture to be existing in collections throughout the United States and decided to describe them formally as independent species.

[24] According to Cássio van den Berg et al., who studied their phylogeny, Leptotes is very closely related to Loefgrenianthus and both situated between Pseudolaelia and the genus which once used to be classified as Schomburgkia, by some now considered part of Laelia.