Encyclia ossenbachiana Pupulin 2006
Photos/TYPE Drawing by © Franco Pupulin, Used under permission of Epidendra Website CR
LATE
Common Name Ossenbach's Encyclia [Costa Rican Founder of the Charles H Lankester Foundation and botanist current]
Flower Size .8" [2 cm]
Found in Alajuela province of Costa Rica in premontane rainforests at elevations of 1900 to 2100 meters as a medium sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with ovoid to subpyriform pseudobulbs subtended by evanescent, scarious bracts and carrying 2 apical, ligulate-oblong, acute, somewhat irregularily bilobed, becoming conduplicate below into the clasping base leaves that blooms in the late spring and summer on a terminal, arching, stout, warty, peduncle to 18" [45 cm] long, terete, enveloped by 6 to 8 scarious, tight bracts, paniculate, each branch to 2.8 to 5.6" [7 to 14 cm] long, perpendicular to the main rachis, warty, overall to 60" [150 cm] long, many flowered inflorescence with triangular-ovate, acute scarious floral bracts and carrying fragrant, spreading-reflexed flowers.
In flower size, Encyclia ossenbachiana approaches E. mooreana described in 1891 from a specimen without locality data, to which it also resembles in the purple blotches at the apex of the reflexed lateral lobes of the lip and on the blade of the midlobe. The lateral lobes, however, are linear-oblong in E. ossenbachiana, whereas they are notably narrowed at the base and widely expanded at apex in E. mooreana, and the midlobe is subquadrate-truncate in E. ossenbachiana vs. rounded in E. mooreana. The two species also differ in the color of sepals and petals, which are completely green in E. ossenbachiana and flecked with purple in E. mooreana, as well as in the shape of the callus. On the top of the laminar callus that is ty-ical of many Encyclia species, E. ossenbachiana presents two retrorse, rounded keels that join at the base to form a narrow cuniculus. The shape of the lateral lobes of the lip has been widely used to separate species groups in Central American Encyclia, and it is a useful character to distinguish E. mooreana from the closely related E. ceratistes The latter species was originally described from a plant collected by Hartweg in the "Spanish Main," or northern South America (Lindley 1844), and its distribution ranges from Mexico to Colombia and Venezuela. The oblong-ligulate lateral lobes of the lip of E. ossenbachiana are comparatively narrower and marked with a round purple blotch at apex, but they agree in shape to those of E. ceratistes. Nonetheless, the two species differ in many aspects. The inflorescence and the ovary of E. ossenbachiana are densely verruculose (vs. slightly warty to glabrous in E. ceratistes), the perianth segments are smaller in E. ossenbachiana .4 to .44 vs .52 to .56" (10 to 11 vs. 13 to 16 mm long), and the sepals and petals are strongly reflexed in E. ossenbachiana (spreading in E. ceratistes). In the original protologue, Lindley (1844) stated that the column of Epidendrum ceratistes is "bicornuta" (or provided with two horn-like arms), whereas in Costa Rican populations the column only presents two very reduced teeth; however, the column of E. ossenbachiana is not winged at all. A photograph of the flowers of E. ossenbachiana was published by Pupulin (2005: 261) without a determination." Pupulin 2006
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Lankester's Epidendra Website CR ;
* Selbyana 27: 4. Pupulin 2006 ;
AOS Bulletin Vol 85 #3 2016 drawing fide;
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