Epidendrum crassum C.Schweinf. 1952
Photo by © Mario Velasquez and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by © Schweinfurth
Common Name The Thick Epidendrum
Flower Size .75" [1.8 cm]
Found in Carabaya Peru on rocks and cliffs at elevations around 3100 meters as a small to medium sized, cold growing lithophyte with a stout, decumbent at the base, leafy in the upper third stems entirely enveloped by loose, scarious, tubular sheaths carrying above, distichous, oblong-ovate to shortly oblong, ascending, sub-acute, basally amplexicaul leaves that blooms on a terminal, suberect, much longer than the leaves, loosely paniculate, with a few , short, ascending, lateral branches, to 5.58" [13.7 cm] long, many flowered inflorescence carrying small, loose flowers.
"Epidendrum crassum is closely related to Epidendrum laciniitropis both of which have a sympodial habit, simple stems, the inflorescence longer than the leaves, erect and without a spathe. . In Epidendrum crassum the sepals, have smaller keels and the margin entire; the petals are narrower than the sepals, oblanceolate, very narrow towards the base; that species is found in southern Peru, east of Cuzco. Epidendrum laciniitropis has red flowers, prominently keeled lateral sepals, with the keel extendlng beyond the apex of the blade and the margin laciniate; the petals are about as wide as the sepals, elliptic, with the apex rounded to obtuse, and they appear 7-veined, due to the much branched lateral veins." Adapted from Icones Orchidaccearum 7 Plate 751 Hagsater etal 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orchids of Peru Vol 2 Schweinfurth 1959 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum Part 7 Plate 751 Hagsater 2004 in recognition section
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