Epidendrum elatum C. Schweinf. 1943 GROUP Andean SUBGROUP Vernixium
Photo by © Eric Hagsater
Photo by © Eric Hunt
TYPE Drawing by © Jimenez, Hágsater & E.Santiago and The AMO Herbario Website
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Common Name The Tall Epidendrum
Flower Size .8" [3 cm]
Found in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia in evergreen, wet montane forests and roadbanks at elevations around 2000 to 3200 meters as a giant sized, cold growing terrestrial orchid with a stout, cane-like stem enveloped completely by close tubular, leaf bearing sheaths that drop the leaf with time and carry numerous, distichous, elliptic, oblong-elliptic or elliptic-lanceolate, obtuse to rounded leaves that are basally clasping to the stem and blooms at most any time of the year in situ on a terminal, racemose, arching to nodding, 5" [12.5 cm] long, densely many flowered inflorescence carrying fleshy, green flowers.
"Epidendrum elatum belongs to the GROUP Andean SUBGROUP Vernixium which is characterized by the monopodial, sub-apical branching habit, erect inflorescences, lax, non-resupinate flowers, and the lip 3-lobed. The species is recognized by the robust, 120" {3 meter] tall plants with oblong-elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate leaves to 1.6" [4 cm] wide; flowers green to greenish-yellow, the ovary elongate, 1 to 2" [25 to 50 mm] long, sepals .6 to .84" [15 to 21 mm] long, the petals narrowly oblanceolate with the apex rounded; lip 3- lobed, the lateral lobes dolabriform, midlobe somewhat wider towards the base than the apex. Epidendrum adamsii Hágsater & Dodson has shorter plants, to 28" [70 cm] tall, sepals .6" [15 mm] long, the ovaries shorter, .8 to 1.28" [20 to 32 mm] long. Epidendrum pozoi Hágsater & Dodson, from southern Ecuador has linear-elliptic leaves to .48" [1.2 cm] wide, and a straight ovary 1.28 to 2.48" [32 to 62 mm] long." Hagsater etal 2009
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orchids Of Peru Vol 2 Fieldiana Schweinfurth 1959 drawing fide; Orchids of Bolivia Vol 2 Laelinae Vasquez and Ibisch 2004; Icones Orchidacearum Part 12 Plate 1240 Hagsater 2009 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 12 Plate 1294 Hagsater 2009 see recognition section; Orchids of the Department of Valle De Cauca Colombia Vol 2 Kolanowska, Hagsater etal. 2014 drawing/photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum 17(1) Plate 1718 Hagsater & Jimenez 2019 see recognintion section; Icones Orchidacearum 18(2) Plate 1896 Hagsater & Jimenez 2021 see recognintion section;
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