Encyclia trachychila (Lindl.) Schltr. 1918
Photos by © The Species Identification Task Force AOS Website
Common Name The Rough Lip Encyclia
Flower Size 2" [5 cm]
Found in Chiapas state of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua as a medium sized, cool growing epiphyte at elevations of 1500 to 1875 meters with dark green, longitudinally sulcate, ovoid-ellipsoid pseudobulbs enveloped by evanescent sheaths and carrying 2 to 4, apical, dark green, lustrous, above, matte green beneath, linear, obtuse and shortly conduplicate leaves that blooms in the spring on an erect to ascending, glabrous, peduncle clear green, rachis olive brown with white spots, paniculate, lateral branches, short, 2 to 3 flowered, 32" [80 cm] long, overall, many flowered inflorescnece with inconspicuous, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
This species can be confused with E ambigua found in Chiapas state of Mexico and Guatemala, which has pale greenish cream flowers with narrowly oblanceolate-spathulate petals, a few broken lines of purple-pink dots on the lobes of the lip the midlobe of the lip with a few slightly raised veins showing very few to no warts and has a proportionally longer lip callus and obliquely triangular column auricles while E trachychila has brown sepals and petals, obovate-spathulate petals, a deep yellow lip with a midlobe carrying many prominent, purplish warts arising from raised lamellae and subquadrate column auricles.
Synonyms *Epidendrum trachychilum Lindl. 1853
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Fol. Orchid. 3: 19 Lindley 1853 as Epidendrum trachychilum;
* Beih. Bot. Centralbl. 36(2): 474 Schlechter 1918
Las Orquideas de El Salvador Vol 1 Hamer 1974 as E ambigua in error drawing/photos fide;
Orchid Digest Vol 61 #4 1997 as E ambigua in error photo fide;
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