Epidendrum rhizomaniacum Rchb. f. 1878 GROUP Difforme
Photos by Karl Senghas
Photos by Walter Teague
Drawing by © Jimenez, Hágsater & E.Santiago and The AMO Herbario Website
Common Name The Rhizome Epidendrum
Flower Size 1" [2.5 cm]
Found in western Ecuador in montane cloud forests at elevations of 250 to 1600 meters as a small sized, hot to cool growing epiphyte with simple, ancipitose, cane-like, flattened, somewhat flexuous stems and carrying 5 to 9, widely ovate, apically bilobed to retuse leaves articulated to the stem and blooms at most any time of the year on an apical, shortly pedunculate, racemose, 1" [2.5 cm] long, simultaneously 2 to 3 flowered inflorescence with new ones that arise successively for several years from the same cane.
"Epidendrum rhizomaniacum belongs to the GROUP Difforme which is characterized by the caespitose, sympodial plants, fleshy, pale green to glaucous leaves, apical inflorescence, sessile, rarely with a short peduncle, single flowered to corymbose, without spathaceous bracts, fleshy, green to yellowish-green rarely white flowers. The species can be recognized by its ancipitose stems, roots from the basal and appearing to sprout from the leaves throughout the stems, 2 to 3 white, simultaneous flowers, ovate, oblong lip with sinuate margin, two laminar calli, clinandrium-hood prominent, conic with margin dentate. Vegetatively similar to Epidendrum apaganum , but their flowers are very different in form, size and color and don't have roots in the nodes of the stems. Epidendrum schunkei D.E.Benn. & Christenson is vegetatively similar, also producing roots throughout the stems, the flowers however are brilliant green, sepals and petals lanceolate-acuminate, lip oblong-elliptic, apiculate, margin erose towards the apex, and the calli laminar, divergent." Hagsaer etal 2010
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Otia Botanica Hamburgensia Rchb.f 1878; AOS Bulletin Vol 32 No 2 1963 photo fide to the first photo; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 094 Dodson 1980 drawing fide; Orchids from The Coast Of Ecuador Arosemana, Jurado, Estrada and Konanz 1988 photo not; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 094 Dodson 1989 see observations; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 2 Dodson 2001 drawing good; Icones Orchidacearum 9 Plate 972 Hagsater 2007 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum Part 13 Plate 1380 Hagsater 2010 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 16[1] Plate 1632 Hagsater & Santiago 2018 See recognition section;
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