Epidendrum acroscopeum Hágsater & Dodson 2006 GROUP Secundum SUBGROUP Elongatum

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

Part sun cold LATEFall EARLYWinter

Common Name The Upwards Pointing Leaves Epidendrum

Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]

Found in southern Ecuador on tepui-like swards with scattered trees at elevations around 2100 meters as a large sized, cold growing terrestrial with simple, cane-like, terete, thin, straight stems carrying 17 or more, all along the apical half of the stem, alternate, distichous, coriaceous, lanceolate, subacute, margin entire leaves that blooms in the the late fall and early winter on a terminal, pluri-racemose, elongating, 20.4" [ to 51 cm] long, densely many flowered inflorescence with much shorter than the ovary, triangular, acuminate floral bracts and carrying 21 per raceme, mostly simultaneously opening, non-resupinate, magenta flowers.

"Epidendrum acroscopeum belongs to the GROUP Secundum SUBGROUP Elongatum which is characterized by the caespitose habit, simple, terete stems numerous, oblong-elliptic, bilobed leaves, a mostly elongate inflorescence, with a raceme of successive, non-resupinate flowers, the lip with a complicated, fleshy callus. The species is recognized by the stems with short, thick, suberect leaves and the magenta colored flowers with a massive callus, formed by two basal, 3-lobed tubercles, and an apical mass in the form of a wide, long platform terminatlng in a short keel. Epidendrum jamiesonis Rchb.f and E. quitensium Rchb.f. both also have magenta-colored flowers with thick, brittle stems, and large, spreading leaves; the deeply cordate to retrorse lateral lobes of the lip and the large, 9-tuberculate callus covering part of the long narrow isthmus of the deeply bilobed, narrow midlobe. The flowers are somewhat similar to those of Epidendrum arachnoglossum Andre which grows around Bogotá, and has large, spreadlng leaves, deep rose-colored flowers with a massive yellow and white callus formed by numerous tubercles forming a wide cirde." Hagsater etal 2006

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Orchidacearum 8 Plate 803 Hagsater & Sanchez 2006 drawing fide

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