Epidendrum orchidiflorum Salzm. ex Lindl. 1831 GROUP Smaragdinum
Photo by © Sylvio Rodrigues Pereira
Photo by © Dalton Holland Baptista
Common Name The Orchid-Like Blooming Epidendrum
Flower Size .8" [2 cm]
Found in Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Brazil in hot tropical forests at elevations around 250 to 1300 meters as a medium to giant sized, hot to cool growing terrestrial or epiphyte with a slender, cane-like, rigid stem enveloped completely by imbricating, tubular, leaf-bearing sheaths and carrying light green, elliptic-lanceolate to lanceolate, acute, flat, stiffly coriaceous, slightly recurved margins, alternate leaves that blooms in the fall and winter on a terminal, becoming lateral on main inflorescence, nodding, subumbellate, racemose, successively 1 to 5, 15 to 20 flowered inflorescence, with flowers that nocturnally smell of lilies.
"The terrestrial or lithophytic Epidendrum orchidiflorum Salzm. belongs to the GROUP Smaragdinum which is characterized by the, caespitose, sympodial habit, with numerous coriaceous leaves, the surface parchment~like when dry, the rachis thickened and small, successive, basically green flowers. The species has much taller plants than the following comparitive species, up to 82" [2.5 meters] tall, with a very long peduncle of the inflorescence, the flowers greenish with brown to purple dots, the lip dearly 3-lobed, with the midlobe deeply emarginate. Epidendrum pachyrachis has lanceolate to lanceolate-elliptic leaves, the short inflorescence, with up to 18 successive, very fleshy, green flowers, the lip transversely elliptic to reniform, with radiating thickened veins at the truncate base, and three elongate central keels, the column short and bidentate at the apex, The South American Epidendrum smaragdinum Lindl. is vegetatively very similar, is epiphytic and myrmecophilous or terrestrial, but the flowers are green, spotless, with the lip dearly 3-lobed, the midlobe entire and apiculate." Adapted from plate 1152 Hagsater etal 2008
Synonyms Epidendrum acrirachis Pabst 1955; Epidendrum caespitosum Barb.Rodr. 1877; Epidendrum garayanum A.D.Hawkes 1957; Epidendrum huebneri Schltr. 1925
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1961 as E huebneri drawing fide to the first photo; AOS Bulletin Vol 36 #9 1967 as Epidendrum huebneri; Flora De Venezuela, Volumen XV Parte 3 Foldats 1970 as E huebneri drawing fide; Flora de Venezuela Vol 15 tercera parte Foldats 1970; Orchidaceae Brasilense Band 1 Pabst & Dungs 1975 as E huebneri drawing fide; Die Orchideen 3 Auflage Bd 1 Sonderabdruck aus Schlechter Lieferung 9 513 - 576 Brieger, Maatsch and Senghas 1977 photo fide; Die Orchideen 3 Auflage Bd 1 Sonderabdruck aus Schlechter Lieferung 9 513 - 576 Brieger, Maatsch and Senghas 1977 as E caespitosum; Die Orchideen 3 Auflage Bd 1 Sonderabdruck aus Schlechter Lieferung 9 513 - 576 Brieger, Maatsch and Senghas 1977 as E acrorhachis sic; Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 1 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 as E huebneri drawing fide to the 1st photo; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 531 Vasquez & Dodson 1982 as E huebneri drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 053 Bennett & Christenson 1993 drawing fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 65 No 7 1996 as E huebneri photo fide; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 1 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003 drawing ok; Orquideas Da Chapada Diamantina Brito & Cribb 2005 photo/drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum Vol 11 Plate 1152 Hagsater & Sanchez 2008 see recognition section; Orquideas de Roirama Luz & Franco 2012 photo fide; Orquideas, Tesoro de Colombia Vol 2 Ortiz & Uribe 2017 drawing fide;
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