Epidendrum criniferum Rchb. f. 1871 GROUP Cristatum SUBGROUP Cristatum
Photo by © Allen Black
Photo by © Weyman Bussey
TYPE Drawing by © Jimenez, Hágsater & E.Santiago and The AMO Herbario Website
to 
Common Name The Hair Carrying Epidendrum [refers to the lip]
Flower Size 3/4" [2 cm]
Found in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru in wet montane forests at elevations of 100 to 1000 meters as a small to medium sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with clustered stems enveloped basally by several tubular scarious sheaths and carrying densely many, linear-lanceolate, acute, basally conduplicate leaves and blooms in the winter on a terminal, erect, loosely 3 to 7 flowered, compressed inflorescence with the peduncle enveloped by imbricating, long-pointed sheathing bracts with showy, fragrant, long-lived flowers.
"Epidendrum criniferum belongs to the GROUP Cristatum which is characterized by the sympodial, caespitose habit, many leaved stems, apical racemose inflorescence with several large, imbricating bracts, and producing successive racemes over the years from the peduncle, and the SUBGROUP Cristatum, with generally greenish flowers, the lip with the margin of lateral lobes generally fimbriate-laciniate. The species is recognized by the relatively short plants up to 20" [50 cm] tall, with narrowly lanceolate leaves, the inflorescence shorter than the apical leaf, 1.2 to 2.6" [3 to 6.5 cm] long, with up to 11, greenish-yellow flowers, with reddish brown dots on the ventral surface of the sepals, the column and lip white, somewhat tinged with pink; the margins of the lateral lobes of the 3-lobed lip are deeply fimbriate-laciniate, and the linear midlobe occasionally wilh a pair of retrorse cilia at the apex. It closely resembles Epidendrum rivulare Lindl. from Cuba, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, which has an elongate peduncle covered with imbricating bracts, and the flowers somewhat lighter colored, with the fimbriae of the lateral lobes of the lip face outwards rather than backwards, Epidendrum cristatum Ruiz & Pavón has taller plants, larger, many-flowered, nutant inflorescences, the 3-lobed lip with the apical margin of the laterallobes erose lo short-laciniate, the midlobe obcuneate with the apex bilobed, the lobes rectangular, divaricate, with the apical margin slightly dentate." Hagsater etal 2008
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Die Orchideen Schlechter 1915; The Genus Epidendrum Ames 1936; The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946; Ceiba Vol 5 No 1 L O Williams 1956; Orchids of Peru Vol 2 Fieldiana Schweinfurth 1959; AOS Bulletin Vol 31 #6 1962 photo fide; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965; AOS Bulletin Vol 49 No 3 1980 photo fide; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 713 Hamer 1982 drawing fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 53 No 3 1984 photo fide; Selbyana Vol 10 Orchids of Central America Hamer 1988 drawing fide; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Series II Orchids of Peru Plate 0061 Dodson & Bennett 1989 drawing fide; Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide; Field Guide to the Orchids of Costa Rica and Panama Dressler 1993; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum plate 044 Bennett & Christenson 1993; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 5 COS 1994 photo fide; Manual de las Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 1 Pupulin 2005 photo fide; Orquideas de la Serrania del Baudo Misas Urreta 2005 drawing/photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum Vol 11 Plate 1114 Hagsater & Sanchez 2008 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 11 Plate 1115 Hagsater 2008 see recognition section; AOS Bulletin Vol 78 #6 2009 photo fide; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Orchids of Costa Rica Vol 3 Morales 2009 photo fide; Orchid Digest Vol 74 #2 2010 photo fide; Las Orquideas del Peru Izerskyy & Bezverhov 2011 photo fide; Le Petit Larousse des Orquidees Lecoufle, Barthelemy and Schmidt 2013 photo fide; Orquideas, Tesoro de Colombia Vol 2 Ortiz & Uribe 2017 drawing/photo fide;
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