Epidendrum berkeleyi (Rolfe) Baptista 2005 GROUP Lanium

Photo by Patricia Harding

Common Name Berkley's Epidendrum [English Orchid Grower, first to Bloom 1800's]

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in Minas Gerais state of Brazil at elevations around 1000 meters as a minature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte or lithophyte with an ovoid to fusiform pseudobulb carrying 2 apical, oblong-elliptic, obtuse leaves and blooms in the fall and winter on a terminal, 3" [7.5 cm] long, finely pubescent, few to several flowered inflorescence.

Epidendrum berkeleyi is part of GROUP Lanium characterized by the rhizomatous plants, the stems cane-like to pseudobulbous, leaves generally aggregate towards the apex, flowers non-resupinate, more or less pubescent, pollinia 2 or 4. Many references put this species as a synonym of E avicula but I have left them separate for now.

Synonyms *Lanium berkeleyi Rolfe 1894

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Die Orchideen Schlechter 1915; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965 as Lanium berkleyi; Orchidaceae Brasilense Band 1 Pabst & Dungs 1975 as Lanium berkeleyi Cattleyas and Their Relatives Withner Vol 3 1990 as Lanium berkeleyi; Orquideas Da Chapada Diamantina Brito & Cribb 2005 as Lanium berkeleyi; Orchidees du Bresil As Orquideas da Serra Do Castello Vol 3 Chiron & Bolsanello 2013 Drawing/photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum 17(1) Plate 1752 Hagsater & Jimenez 2019 see recognition section;

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