Encyclia vespa (Vell.) Dressler 1971 Photo by Patricia Harding
MOSTLY
Common Name The Wasp Encyclia
Flower Size 1/4" or less [.6 cm or less]
Found in Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Trinidad & Tobago, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, French Guiana, Surinam, Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil in lower montane rain forests at elevations of 600 to 2400 meters as a medium sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte on larger branches and tree trunks and as a terrestrial on grassy or rocky slopes in leaf litter with a little soil, with orbicular, elliptic or uncommonly cylindric, compressed, pseudobulbs that taper to a slightly fractiflex apex with two to three, oblong-elliptic to lanceolate, lightly coriaceous, dark green leaves and blooms on an erect, 12" [30 cm] long, many [20] flowered inflorescence arising on a mature pseudobulb with inverted, fragrant, waxy flowers occuring mostly in the spring.
Synonyms Encyclia vespa subsp. triandra Dod 1993; *Epidendrum vespa Vell. 1827[1833]; Prosthechea vespa (Vell.) W.E.Higgins 1997 publ. 1998
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; AOS Bulletin Vol 33 #8 1964; AOS Bulletin Vol 36 # 3 1967 as Epidendrum vespa photo fide; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 3 1970 as Epidendrum vespa; Fieldiana Biology, Vol 33, 1st Supple. to the Orchids of Peru Schweinfurth 1970 sa Epidendrum vespa; Orchid Digest Vol 36 No 2 1972 drawing fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 48 No 3 1979 as Epidendrum vespa photo fide; The Orchids of Surinam Werkhoven 1986 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 62 #8 1993 photo not = A crassilabium; Orchid Digest Vol 70 #2 2006 photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum Vol 11 Plate 1117 Hagsater & Sanchez 2008 see recognition section;
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