Epistephium ellipticum R.O.Williams & Summerh. 1928
TYPE Drawing by © L O Williams & Summerhayes
Drawing by © Mansfield
LATE 
EARLY 
Common Name The Elliptic Epistephium [refers to the leaves shape]
Flower Size 1.6" [4 cm]
Found in Belize, Costa Rica, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, Venezuela, Peru and Brazil in rain or cloud forests at elevations around 600 to 1100 meters as a small to medium sized, warm to cool growing terrestrial with fleshy roots giving rise to an erect stem carrying thinly coriaceous, glabrous, elliptic to oblong-elliptic, abruptly acute to acuminate, narrowing below into the shortly petiolate base leaves that blooms in the late summer through early winter on a terminal, shorter than the leaves, to .32" [8 mm] long, successively single, to 12 flowered, inflorescence with triangular, acuminate, persistent floral bracts.
E ellipticum is separated from all others by its low stature and the crowded racemes among the elliptic, shortly stalked leaves. Only E parviflorum and E petiolatum have petiolate base leaves but they are very tall plants with elongate racemes.
Synonyms Epistephium tenuifolium Mansf. ex Hoehne 1945
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Bull. Misc. Inform. Kew 1928(4): 145. L O Williams & Summerhayes 1928 drawing fide; Fl. Brasílica 8(12; 2): 42 Hoehne 1945 as E tenuifolium drawing fide; Native Orchids of Trinidad & Tobago Schultes 1960; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 1 1969 drawing fide; Orchidaceae Brasilense Band 1 Pabst & Dungs 1975; Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003; Lankestriana 12(1): Karremans and Bogarin 2012 collection sheet fide; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018
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