Epidendrum arachnoglossum Rchb.f. ex André 1882 GROUP Secundum SUBGROUP Elongatum
In situ Bogota Colombia 8/2020 Photos by © Jay Pfahl
Common Name The Spider-Like Lip Epidendrum
Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]
Found in Colombia and Ecuador? [see note below] in montane forests and along roadsides at elevations around 1800 to 3000 meters as a medium to giant sized, cool to cold growing terrestrial or epiphyte with erect, simple, terete, straight, green in youth becoming purple tinged with age, cane-like stems carrying 18 to 24, distichous, all along the stem, alternate, articulate, coriaceous, dark green occasionally purple tinged, unequal in size, narrowly elliptic-lanceolate, to lanceolate-oblong, subobtuse leaves that blooms in the spring on a terminal, peduncle elongate, terete, enveloped by 3 to 4, tubular, acute, not imbricate bracts, 7.2 to 10" [18 to 25 cm] long, 8 to 24" [20 to 60 cm] long, pluri-racemose, in an apical corymb, successively, densely many flowered inflorescence with much shorter than the ovary, linear-triangular, acuminate floral bracts and carrying non-resupinate flowers.
CAUTION Hagsater states that this orchid only occurs around the Bogota area of Colombia and does not come from Ecuador.
"Epidendrum arachnoglossum Rchb.f. is part of GROUP Secundum SUBGROUP Elongatum characterized by the complicated, tuberculose callus on the lip, with a low column, with an incumbent anther. The species a common species around Bogotá, has violet-crimson flowers, a many-lobed white and orange-yellow callus, and the deeply fringed lip forms a nearly entire, orbicular lamina, the base cordate." Plate 1486 Hagsater etal 2013
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Die Orchideen Schlechter 1915; Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. Beih. 7: 244 Schlechter 1920; Atlas des Orchidees Cultivees Constantin 1920 as E arachnoglossum var candidum drawing fide to the first photo; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965 as E arachnoglossum fma candidum; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 2 Dodson 2001 photo fide to the first photo; Icones Orchidacearum 8 Plate 803 Hagsater and Sanchez 2006 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 14 Plate 1410 Hagsater & Santiago 2013 See recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 14 Plate 1486 Hagsater & Santiago 2013 See recognition section; Orchids of the Department of Valle De Cauca Colombia Vol 2 Kolanowska, Hagsater etal. 2014 drawing fide to the first photo; AOS Bulletin Vol 85 #10 2016 photo fide to the second photo; Orquideas, Tesoro de Colombia Vol 2 Ortiz & Uribe 2017 photo fide to the first photo;
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