Epidendrum alpicola Rchb.f. & Warsz. 1854 GROUP Alpicolum SUBGROUP Alpicolum TYPE for the group
photo by © Alexander Moran Mendez
photos by © Patricia Harding and Species Identification Taskforce Website
Common Name The High Elevation Epidendrum
Flower Size .6" [1.5 cm]
Found in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru at elevations of 1900 to 2500 meters as a medium sized, cold growing epiphyte with closely spaced, terete basally, grading to lightly compressed, leafy above stem enveloepd basally by gray tubular, close fitting sheaths and carrying linear-elliptic, thin, finely sulcate carinate mid nerve, finely revolute margins, lightly unequally and sharply mucronate leaves that blooms on a terminal, suberect, compressed, arcuate-pendent, 4.8" [to 12 cm] long, cylindrical, densely many flowered inflorescence arising through a single prominent, compressed, shiny green spathe becoming scarious in time and with whtie, slender, inconspicuous, half the length of the ovary floral bracts and carrying very fragrant flowers.
Epidendrum alpicola is the TYPE for the GROUP Alpicolum SUBGROUP Alpicolum characterized by the sympodial, caspitose to sometimes somewhat creeping habit, stems cane-like, simple, several leaved, with an elongate, apical, racemose, lax-flowered inflorescence, the flowers are star-shaped, membranaceous, the lip 3-lobed, not fleshy thickened, bicallose, the mid-lobe rectangular to triangular, the lateral lobes dolabriform to semi-orbicular. It is similar to E dialychilum in most all features other than the lip is free from the column, which in E apicolum is adnate to the column.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. Beih. 6: 41 Schlechter 1919; Repertorium Specierum Novarum Regni Vegetabilis 7: 243. Schlechter 1920; Fieldiana Biology, Vol 33, 1st Supple. to the Orchids of Peru Schweinfurth 1970; Flora de Venezuela Vol 15 part 3 Foldats 1970; Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 6 Dunsterville & Garay 1976 drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela, an Illustrated Field Guide Vol 1 Dunsterville and Garay 1979 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 2 Plate 128 Hagsater & Sanchez 1993 see recognition section; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 1 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 4 Plate 465 Hagsater 2001 see recognition section; Orquideas Nativas del Tachira Fernandez 2003 photo fide; Orchids of Bolivia Vol 2 Laelinae Vasquez and Ibisch 2004 drawing/photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum 11 Plate 1199 Hagsater 2008 see recognition section; Orquideas, Tesoro de Colombia Vol 2 Ortiz & Uribe 2017 as E aff alpicolum Photo good/drawing fide;
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