Elleanthus vernicosus Garay 1978 SUBGENUS Calelyna SECTION Calelyna Szach & Dudek 2023
Photo by © Alexander Reynolds and The UC Davis Botany Photo Website
Photo by © Andreas Kaye and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
Drawing by © Calaway Dodson
Common Name The Varnished Elleanthus [refers to the leaves]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador on embankments in very wet montane forests at elevations of 1300 to 2500 meters as a large to giant sized, cool to cold growing terrestrial on embankments with unbranched, terete, leafy in the upper half stems carrying 5 to 7, thin, plicate, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, shiny like varnish above, dark scaly beneath gradually narrowing below into the sessile leaves that blooms in the summer and fall on a terminal, sessile, cylindric, 4" [10 cm] long, densely many flowered inflorescence with 2, large, obtuse, foliaceous spathes below and purple, cymbiform, obtuse, longer than the ovary floral bracts.
"Separated from others by the minutely and densely papillate center of the lip." Szlatchetko & Kolanowska 2023
Synonyms *Evelyna strobilifera Poepp. & Endl. 1836
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI
*Flora of Ecuador No 9 225[1] Garay 1978 drawing ok;
Icones Plantarum Tropicaum Plate 454 Dodson 1989 drawing fide;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 2 Dodson 2001 drawing fide/photo not = E virgatus;
Flora of Ecuador No 87 225[3] Orchidaceae Dodson & Luer 2010;
Materials to the Orchid Flora of Colombia Vol IV:247 Szlatchetko & Kolanowska 2023 drawing fide
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
