Epidendrum orbiculatum C.Schweinf. 1943 GROUP Megalospathum SUBGROUP Cupreum
Photo by Ecuagenera and their Ecuador Orchid Website
Drawing by © Jimenez, Hágsater & E.Santiago and The AMO Herbario Website
Original Drawing by © Padre Pedro Ortiz Conserved at the Herbario de la Universidad Javeriana, Bogota Colombia
Common Name The Rounded Lip Epidendrum
Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]
Found in Cuzco departement of Peru in damp, high altitude forests with a dry season from May through December at elevations around 2800 to 3150 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphyte with curved, spreading, lightly complanate stems enveloped basally by close, tubular, scarious sheaths with and without articulated basal leaves and carrying oblong to oblong-elliptic, coriaceous, thick, obtuse, conduplicate below into the clasping base leaves that are minutely bilobed apically and blooms in the winter and spring on a short to 2" [5 cm], somewhat arching, peduncle thin, totally covered by the prominent, coriaceous, obovate, rounded, margin entire, conduplicate spathe, simultaneously 3 to 5 flowered, racemose inflorescence with very small, triangular, acute floral bracts and carrying resupinate, green to greenish brown flowers.
"Epidendrum orbiculatum belongs to the Cupreum Subgroup of the GROUP Megalospathum SUBGROUP Cupreum, recognized by the wide, single, semiovate spathe, the erect stems with 3 to 5 coriaceous leaves, and resupinate flowers; the ventral surface of the column with a cavity accessed through a long narrow slit. The species has a sub-orbicular lip, somewhat wider than long, the margin entire. The two following species have been generally confused with it. Epidendrum kymatochilum Hágsater & Dodson from the border between Ecuador and Peru is recognized by the cuneate, flabellate, lip, with a pair of incipient, basal hemi-circular lobes, their margin undulate. Epidendrum cupreum F.C.Lehm. & Kraenzl. has smaller flowers, the sepals .4" [10 mm] long, and the lip ecallose; this species is distributed along the eastern slope of the Andes from southern Colombia to southern Ecuador." Hagsater etal 2010
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orchids of Peru Vol 2 Fieldiana Schweinfurth 1959; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 067 Dodson & Bennett 1989 drawing fide; Icones Orchidaceaeum Peruviarum Plate 052 Bennett & Christenson 1993 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum Part 7 Plate 750 Hagsater 2004 see recognition section; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum 13 Plate 1302 Hagsater 2010 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum Part 13 Plate 1364 Hagsater 2010 drawing fide; Orquideas, Tesoro de Colombia Vol 2 Ortiz & Uribe 2017 drawing fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 87 #10 2018 photo fide;
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