Epidendrum acroamparoanum Hágsater & L.Sánchez 2006 GROUP Difforme

TYPE Drawing by © Jimenez, Hágsater & E.Santiago and The Amo Herbario Website

LATE EARLY

Common Name The High Elevation Amparoanum Epidendrum [refers to its similarity to E vulgoamparoanum]

Flower Size 1.2" [3 cm]

Found in Costa Rica on the cordillera de Talamanca in elfin forests at elevations around 3150 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphyte with simple, canelike stems that are basally terete and somewhat laterally compressed above and carrying 9, throughout the stem, elliptic to ovate, unequally bilobed apically, smooth, dorsal keel low leaves that blooms in the late winter and early spring on a terminal, occuring only once, thin, terete, smooth, to .28" [7 mm] long, simultaneously 5 to 6 flowered inflorescence with much shorter than the ovary, triangular, acute floral bracts and carrying resupinate, light green flowers.

"Epidendrum acroamparoanum belongs to the GROUP Difforme which is characterized by the caespitose, sympodial plants, fleshy, pale green to glaucous leaves, apical inflorescence, sessile, rarely with a short peduncle, one- flowered to corymbose, without spathaceous bracts, fleshy, green to yellowish-green rarely white flowers. The species has pale green flowers, oblong-elliptic, 5-veined sepals, narrowly rhombic, 5-veined petals, a clearly 3-lobed, trapezoid, bicallose lip, the disc with basally thickened, radiating veins, the lateral lobes of the lip subrectangular with the margin undulate, the midlobe bilobed, the lobes semiorbicular. It is similar to Epidendrum vulgoamparoanum which grows in dry, Pacific lowland forests in Costa Rica and Panama, from sea level to 500 meters in elevation , and has 7-veined sepals, 3-veined petals, and the lip obscurely 3-lobed, the lateral lobes semiorbicular, and the midlobe obscurely bilobed. Epidendrum yojoaense Hágsater & L.Sánchez grows in wet rainforests of the Atlantic slope in Honduras at 600 to 700 meteres in elevation, and has glaucous- green leaves and flowers with 7-veined-sepals, 3-veined petals, and a reniform lip. Epidendrum barbeyanum Kraenzl. grows in seasonally dry forests in Costa Rica and Chiriqui province of Panama at elevations of 800 to 1800 meters and has ancipitose stems, 7-veined sepals, 3-veined petals, flabelliform lateral lobes of the lip, wlth the midlobe shorter than the lateral lobes and separated by deep sinuses, and forms two divergent triangular to subrectangular, acute to rounded lobes, and a reduced, entire clinandrium hood. Epidendrum romero-castennedae Hágsater & L.Sánchez grows on the inland slopes along the Gulf of Darien in eastern Panama and northern Colombia, from elevations of 10 to 700 meters, and has 7-veined sepals, narrowly elliptic 3-veined petals and the lateral lobes of the lip semiorbicular, the midlobe short, emarginate, forming two small lobes with a central mucro." Hagsater etal 2008

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Orchidacearum 8 Plate 802 Hagsater & Sanchez 2006 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 14 Plate 1421 Hagsater & Santiago 2013 See recognition section;

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