Epidendrum laurelense Hágsater & Dodson 2001 GROUP Secundum SUBGROUP Secundum

TYPE Drawing by Jimenez and The AMO Herbaria Website

LATER

Common Name The El Laurel Epidendrum [The Ranch in Ecuador where the species was discovered]

Flower Size .8” [2 cm]

Found in northern Ecuador near the border with Colombia on roadsides and rocks in wet montane forests at elevations of 1400 to 3000 meters as a giant sized, cool to cold growing terrestrial or lithophyte with erect, cane-like, terete, straight stems carrying numerous, all along the apical 2/3’s of the stem, coriaceous, oblong, apically bilobed leaves that blooms in the later spring on a terminal, arising on a mature stem, erect, peduncle elongate, racemose, producing successive racemes over several years, successively 12, many flowered inflorescence with much shorter than the ovary, triangular, acute floral bracts and carrying non-resupinate, carmine red flowers with the apex of the column around the anther yellow and the callus is white.

"Epidendrum laurelense belongs to the GROUP Secundum SUBGROUP Secundum c haracterized as a subgroup by the bicallose lip with a central, narrow, long, wavy keel, the column is apically high and the anther is generally decumbent. The species can be recognized by the non-resupinate carmine-red flowers with a complex, massive white callus; the plant is subcaespitose, with thick roots and the new stems arising somewhat up the previous stem and at right angles, the various open flowers give the inflorescence a spherical shape. Epidendrum vinosum Schltr. has larger flowers with the sepals ca. .6" [15 mm] long and the lip forming a three-cornered structure with the lateral lobes retrorse, the f1owers are bronzy pink, with the callus large, prominent and white." Hagsater etal 2001

"Similar red-flowered species to Epidendrum aromoense are: Epidendrum tulcanense Hágsater & Dodson has also red flowers but it is distinguished by the large white massive callus, formed by nine unequal tubercles: four basal ones and the main structure formed by five sub-equal tubercles. Epidendrum laurelense Hágsater & Dodson, that differ from E. aromoense by the carmine-red flowers on a much more open raceme, with a massive white callus formed by a semicircular sulcate, marginally plurilobulate fleshy plate, found between Tulcán and Maldonado, on the border between Ecuador and Colombia, on roadsides and rocks in wet forest between at around 2000 to 2500 m above sea level. Epidendrum coroicoënse Schltr. is another species similar to E. aromoense by the lacquer-red flowers; however, the former species is known from southern Peru and western Bolivia, along the upper Amazon slope of the Cordillera Oriental of the Andes, and differ from E. aromoense by the narrow leaves about 6 to 7 times longer than wide, the petals wider than the sepals, elliptic-sub-orbicular, the lip bearing lateral lobes overlapping with the mid-lobe when spread; and callus 5-tuberculate with two basal and three apical tubercles, and without keels. Epidendrum portokalium Hágsater & Dodson is another species with red flowers that resembles E. aromoense, but it is found on the Amazon slopes of the Andes in central Ecuador, and differs from E. aromoense by the callus unequally 7-tuberculed (with four basal tubercles and three apical ones" Epidendrum aromoense (Orchidaceae, Laeliinae), a New Species from the Coastal Dry Forests in Western Ecuador (PDF Download Available). Available from: Epidendrum aromoense Orchidaceae Laeliinae a New Species from the Coastal Dry Forests in Western Ecuador [accessed Nov 01 2017].

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Orchidacearum 4 Plate 452 Hagsater & Dodson 2001 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 14 Plate 1491 Hagsater & Santiago 2013 See recognition section; Orquideas, Tesoro de Colombia Vol 2 Ortiz & Uribe 2017; Icones Orchidacearum 16[1] Plate 1605 Hagsater & Santiago 2018 See recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 17(1) Plate 1718 Hagsater & Jimenez 2019 see recognintion section

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