Epidendrum rafael-lucasii Hágsater 1993 GROUP Ramosum SUBGROUP Mirabile
Photos by © Bogarin, Used under permission of Epidendra Website CR
TYPE Drawing by © Jimenez, Hágsater & E.Santiago and The AMO Herbario Website
LATE 
THROUGH 
Common Name Rafael Lucas' Epidendrum [Costa Rican Botanist 1900's]
Flower Size 1.2" [3 cm]
Found in Costa Rica and Panama in lower montane rainforests at elevations of 600 to 1000 meters as a small sized, pendant, warm growing epiphyte with stems arising from the internodes in the middle of the preceding stem and carrying evenly distributed, elliptic to lanceolate, emarginate, mucronate leaves that blooms in the late spring through fall on a terminal, occurring only once, short, distichous, zigzag, successively or not, 2 to 4 flowered inflorescence with prominent, conduplicate, almost as long as the ovary, brown spotted, floral bracts and carrying diurnal weakly scented of lemon flowers.
Epidendrum rafael-lucasii is part of GROUP Ramosum SUBGROUP Mirabile characterized by the pendent plants, successive stems produced from a middle internode of the previous stem, without any evident main stem; the flowers white to purple and mostly very fragrant. The species is recognized by the pendent plants with the new stems produced from the middle of a previous stem, and the 2 to 4 flowered raceme with greenish-yellow, lemon-scented flowers and prominent distichous bracts. Similar to E mirable but it has larger plants carrying 2, larger, very showy purple colored flowers. Epidendrum mora-retanae Hágsater has a long, conspicuous main stem and small branches from which the raceme with imbricating bracts and white flowers is produced. Epidendrum acuñae Dressler also has a main stem with small flowering branches, fleshy leaves and a racemeof two greenish-brown flowers.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Orchidacearum 2 Plate 179 Hagsater 1993 drawing fide; Field Guide to the Orchids of Costa Rica and Panama Dressler 1993; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 308 Hagsater 1999 see recogntion section; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 325 Hagsater 1999 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 359 Hagsater 1999 see recognition section; Manual de las Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 1 Pupulin 2005 photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum 8 Plate 840 Hagsater 2006 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 9 Plate 957 Hagsater 2007 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 13 Plate 1327 Hagsater 2010 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 13 Plate 1382 Hagsater & Santiago 2010 See recognition section;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
