Epidendrum confertum Ames & C.Schweinf. 1930 GROUP Ramosum SUBGROUP Repens

TYPE Drawing of E prostratum by © Schlechter and the Epidendra Webpage

Drawing

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

Part shadeColdEARLY Spring THROUGH EARLIERSummer

Common Name The Crowded Epidendrum

Flower Size .6" [1.5 cm]

Found in Costa Rica, Panama in wet cloud forests at elevations of 2000 to 2400 meters as a small to medium sized, cold growing, prostrate to pendent epiphtye with Dichaea-Like, branching, terete, cane-like stems producing from several subapical internodes of the previous flowering stem and carrying numerous, all along the stems, complanate, perpendicular to the stem, coriaceous, strongly carinate, minutely rugose, ovate, acute to acuminate, not articulate below into the base leaves that blooms in the spring through earlier summer on a terminal, sessile, single flowered inflorescence with a single, triangular, acute bract and ovate, obtuse floral bracts and carrying non-resupinate, green to greenish white flowers.

"Epidendrum confertum belongs to the GROUP Ramosum which is characterized by the monopodial, branching stems, the spike-like, distichous inflorescence, and the single callus and the SUBGROUP Repens, which has pendent plants with small leaves, less than 1" [2.5 cm] long. The species is immediately recognized by the Dichaea-like vegetatlve habit non-articulate, strongly carinate leaves, and the one-flowered inflorescence. Epidendrum repens Cogn and E. brachyrepens Hágsater also have one-flowered inflorescence but the leaves are unequally bilobed and articulate, with more space between the leaves, where the thin stem is clearly visible.

Synonyms Epidendrum prostratum Schltr. 1918

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; The Genus Epidendrum Ames 1936; The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946; Ceiba Vol 5 No 1 L O Williams 1956; Field Guide to the Orchids of Costa Rica and Panama Dressler 1993; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 315 Hagsater & Sanchez 1999 see recognition section; Manual de las Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Icones Orchidacearum 9 Plate 919 Hagsater 2007 drawing fide;

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