Epidendrum ruizianum Steud. 1840 GROUP Pseudepidendrum SUBGROUP Viridipurpureum
Photo courtesy of © Lourens Grobler
Photo courtesy of Andrea Nissen and her Orquideas del Valle Website.
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Common Name Ruiz's Epidendrum [Spanish Botanist 1700's]
Flower Size 3/4" [2 cm]
Found in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia where it occurs on steep, rocky slopes in full sunlight at elevations of 1200 to 3100 meters as a robust, large sized, cool to cold growing, reedstem terrestrial or epiphyte with erect, leafy stems carrying, oblong, emarginate, coriaceous, basally clasping, graduated in size from the base leaves that blooms in the summer on a terminal, arising on mature canes subtended by many conspicuous imbricate, lanceolate, acute, compressed bracts that form a compound spathe, nodding, 6" [15 cm] long, paniculate, congested, successively many flowered inflorescence carrying fragrant flowers.
Epidendrum ruizianum is part of GROUP Pseudepidendrum SUBGROUP Viridipurpureum characterized by the caespitose, sympodial habit, the subcoriaceous leaves, the prominent spathaceous bracts and the wide [not filiform] petals, the pollina that is laterally compressed but not quite to the bird wing type, and the midlobe of the lip is bifid. Not to be confused with Epidendrum nutans Sw. 1788 which is found only in Jamaica, Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil.
Synonyms Epidendrum nutans Ruiz & Pav. 1798 non Sw 1788; Epidendrum spathaceum Lindl. 1841
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Bonplandia Rchb.f 1854 as E spathaceum; Bonplandia Rchb.f 1855 as E spathaceum; Bonplandia Rchb.f 1856 as E spathaceum; Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. Beih. 7: 252 Schlechter 1920 as E spathaceum; Orchids of Peru Vol 2 Fieldiana Schweinfurth 1959; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 3 1970 drawing good; Die Orchideen 3 Auflage Bd 1 Sonderabdruck aus Schlechter Lieferung 9 513 - 576 Brieger, Maatsch and Senghas 1977 photo fide; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Series II plate 0230 Dodson & Vasquez 1989 drawing not; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 2 COS 1991 photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 470 Bennett & Christenson 1998 drawing fide; Orquideas Nativas del Tachira Cesar Fernandez 2003 photo fide; Orchids of Bolivia Vol 2 Laelinae Vasquez and Ibisch 2004 drawing/photo fide; Orquideas de la Serrania del Baudo Misas Urreta 2006 drawing/photo fide; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Orchids of the Department of Valle De Cauca Colombia Vol 2 Kolanowska, Hagsater etal. 2014 drawing/photo fide; Orquideas, Tesoro de Colombia Vol 2 Ortiz & Uribe 2017 drawing/photo fide;
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