Epidendrum becerrae Hagsater & Santiago 2013 GROUP Saxicola
Photo © by A. Monteagudo/TYPE Drawing by Hagsater & Santiago and The AMO Herbaria Website
LATER
Common Name Becerra's Epidendrum [Peruvian Botanist and collector of species current]
Flower Size .8” [2 cm]
Found in Pasco Peru in montane primary forests at elevations of 2900 to 3300 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte or terrestrial in sphagnum moss with a fusiform, heteroblastic pseudobulb, the new pseudobulb produced from a rhizome about .4 to .6" [1-2 cm] long, enveloped nearly totally by 1-2 non-foliar, scarious, striated, strongly rugose foliar sheaths and carrying a single, apical, articulate, coriaceous, narrowly elliptic to lanceolate-elliptic, apex subobtuse, minutely apiculate, margin entire leaf that blooms in the later spring on a terminal, arising through a single spathe, racemose, erect, peduncle 1.12” to 1.6” [2.8-4 cm] long, slightly longer than the apical leaf, laterally compressed, thin, erect, straight, mauve colored, rachis .24 to .4" [6-10 mm] long, simultaneously 2 to 3 flowered inflorescence with much shorter than the ovary, triangular-ovate, acute, amplexicaul floral bracts and carrying secund, non-resupinate, mauve colored flowers with a lighter mauve colored lip.
"Epidendrum becerrae belongs to the GROUP Saxicola characterized by the pseudobulbous stems, racemose inflorescence subtended by a prominent spathaceous bract, and the few, showy flowers, either resupinate or non-resupinate. The species is recognized by the creeping habit, fusiform, uni-foliate pseudobulbs, the erect, few-flowered inflorescence, non-resupinate, second, purple flowers, the petals oblanceolate, the cordiform lip united to the column throughout. It is somewhat reminiscent of Epidendrum micro-cattleya, but that species has 2 flowers, with the lip oriented inwards, towards each other, the petals about as wide as the sepals, and the lip produced from a sigmoid claw at the middle of the column, the column itself with a pair of prominent, short, wide, dolabriform wings. Epidendrum saxicola Kraenzl. has somewhat larger flowers, sepals .6" [15 mm] long, a prominent, funnel-shaped clinandrium-hood, and the convex lip is .4 x .4" [10 x 10 mm], sub-orbicular, somewhat pentagonal with the margin crenulate and spreading from the column, without embracing it. Epidendrum microcattleyioides D.E.Benn. & Christenson has 4 non-resupinate, yellow flowers, the margin white, the flowers crowded at the apex of the peduncle, which does not surpass the surrounding spathaceous bract, the lip is reniform with the apex widely emarginate, the petals wide, obovate-spatulate, the lateral sepals are not obliquely joined to the column, and the ovary is geniculate." Hagsater etal 2013
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Orchidacearum 14 Plate 1411 Hagsater & Sanchez 2013 drawing/photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum 17(2) Plate 1796 Hagsater & Jimenez 2020 see recognition section;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
