Epidendrum costanense Hágsater & Carnevali 1993 GROUP Tipuloideum

TYPE Drawing by © Jimenez, Hágsater & E.Santiago and The AMO Herbario Website

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Common Name or Meaning The Cordillera de la Costa Epidendrum

Flower Size .6" [1.5 cm]

Found in Venezuela in the Cordillera de la Costa at elevations of 1200 to 1360 meters as a small sized, cool growing epiphyte with narrowly fusiform, several noded pseudobulbs enveloped completely in youth by scarious, imbricating sheaths and carrying 2 to 3, from the upper sheaths of the pseudobulb, linear-elliptic, acute, grasslike leaves that blooms in the late winter and spring on a terminal, arising on a mature pseudobulb, occuring only once, shorter than the apical leaf, to 3.2" [8 cm] long including the .6 to 1" [1.5 to 2.5 cm] long peduncle, erect to slightly arcuate, racemose, simultaneously 4 to 20 flowered inflorescence without a spathe but has triangular-ovate, hyaline, much shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying resupinate, sweet but not pleasantly scented, green, creamy green or creamy buff flowers with a white column.

"Epidendrum costanense is part of GROUP Tipuloideum characterized by the caespitose, sympodial habit, 1 to 2 apical leaves on a short stem, grass-like to thickened and fleshy to semi-terete, a short, racemose inflorscence, the flowers green, petals narrower than the sepals, and deeply 3-lobed lip. The species is restricted to the Cordillera de la Costa and is closely allied to Epidendrum tipuloideum from the Sierra de los Andes in Venezuela and Colombia but can be distinguished by the heart-shaped, entire, ecallose lip with 5 to 7, basal, low keels; the flowers appear to be always light green or yellowish, without reddish or brown lines. Epidendrum tipuloideum has a clearly 3 lobed lip and a pair of basal, subglobose calli, sometimes extending into short, low keels, and a central low keel, The flowers are generally described as having light red-brown lines and small points or suffusion, especially on the sepals and petals. The shape of the lip is very easily recognized in both live and pressed specimes. Specimens cited from Peru belong to a different unidentifiesd species." Hagsater etal 1993

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Orchidaceaeum 2 Plate 124 Hagsater & Sanchez 1993 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 17(1) Plate 1791 Hagsater & Jimenez 2019 see recognition section;

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