Epidendrum amaruense Hágsater, Collantes & E.Santiago 2006 GROUP Diothonea SUBGROUP Diothonea

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

LATER

Common Name The Amaru Forest Epidendrum [A forest in central Peru]

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in central Peru in cloud forests at elevations of 2100 to 2450 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, simple, cane-like, terete stems producing new stems from a subapical, internode of the previous stem and carrying 8, on the apical 1/2 of the stem, alternate, suberect, linear-lanceolate, rounded, bilobed, entire margin, articulate below into the base leaves that blooms in the later summer on a terminal, racemose, arching, occuring only once, terete, thin, .4" [1 cm] long, few to several flowered inflorescence with linear-triangular, acuminate, about half the length of the ovary floral bracts carrying 4 to 8, simultaneously opening, non-resupinate, yellow to ochre green flowers with the sepal margins tinged with brownish red.

"Epidendrum amaruense belongs to the GROUP Diothonea SUBGROUP Diothonea which is characterized by the branching plants linear-lanceolate to oblong leaves, the apex bilobed, blooms on a racemose, arching-nutant inflorescence with membranaceous flowers (rarely fleshy), the entire to 3-lobed, ecallose lip with an erose margin, with or without 1 to 10 thin, smooth to erose keels, the column completely free to obliguely united to the lip, and the anther reniform. The species is recognized by the small, non-resupinate, yellow to ochre-green flowers with sepals .16 to .2" [4 to 5 mm]long with wide floral segments, the ovate petals .16" [4 mm] wide and the lip reniform, bilobed. It is similar to Epidendrum jativae Dodson which shares the non-resupinate flowers, but has longer leaves, up to 4" [10 cm] long, .6" [1.5 mm] wide, oblong petals, and the 3-keeled lip 3-lobed with the midlobe small and itself bllobed. It is vegetatively similar to Epidendrum cochabambanum Dodson & Vasquez which has linear petals .32 to .6" [0.8 to 1.5 mm] wide, and a transversely elliptic lip with the apex slightly lobed, and forming a wide throat with the column. Epidendrum gastrochilum Kraenzl., also from Peru, has much larger flowers sepals .44 to .52" [11 to 13 mm] long and the lip is ovate-orbicular with 6 laminar keels, and has a much longer column .36 to .4" [9 to 1.0 mm] long, and shares the curious narrow cavity on the underside of the column which is accessed through a narrow, elongate slit, a feature first described for the Colombian Epidendrum cleistocoleum Hágsater & Santiago and also shared by Epidendrum cottoniiflorum [Rchb.f.) Hagsater." Hagsater etal 2006

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Orchidacearum 8 Plate 805 Hasater & Salazar 2006 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 9 Plate 987 Hagsater 2007 see recognition section;

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