Elleanthus caricoides Nash 1907 SUBGENUS Calelyna SECTION Maculatae Szach & Dudek 2023
Photo by © Franco Pupulin, Used under permission of Epidendra Website CR
Drawing by © P Baranow 2023
Common Name The Carex-Like Elleanthus [A small reed-like grass]
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica in moist lower montane forests at elevations of 200 to 1350 meters as a medium sized, hot to cool growing epiphyte with a very slender stem carrying a few, linear-lanceolate to linear, long acuminate, plicate leaves that blooms in the fall on a terminal, dense, 1 to 1.4" [2.5 ot 3.5 cm] long, successively 3 to 7 flowered, heloconially arranged inflorescence with a big, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, green floral bract and a carrying, successively single, bell-shaped flowers that are almost hidden among the bracts.
"Similar to E maculatus but distinguished by a short, few flowered inflorescence, smaller white flowers and a transversely eelliptic versus obovate. In flower color it is similsr to E wallnoeferi but sepatrated by the floral bracts and the petal shape.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Lankester's Epidendra Website CR ;
*Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 34: 119. 1907;
Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 19: 163. Costa Rica Schlechter 1923;
Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 670 Hamer 1982 drawing good;
ORQUIDEA (Méx. ) 10 (1) ABRIL 1986 drawing/photo fide;
Selbyana Vol 10 Orchids of Central America Hamer 1988 drawing good;
Field Guide to the Orchids of Costa Rica and Panama Dressler 1993;
Icones Orchidacearum Plate 553 Hagsater 2002 drawing good;
Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;
Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 1 Pupulin 2005 photo fide;
Orchids of Costa Rica Vol 2 Morales 2009 photo fide;
Materials to the Orchid Flora of Colombia Vol IV:236 Szlatchetko & Kolanowska 2023 drawing fide
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