Epidendrum gnomoides Hágsater 2004 GROUP Porpax SUBGROUP Porpax

TYPE Drawing by © Jimenez, Hágsater & E.Santiago and The AMO Herbario Website

Common Name or Meaning The Gnome-Like Epidendrum [refers to this species similarity to E gnomus]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in southeastern Peru at elevations around 1900 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with sympodial, cane-like, thin, terete branching stems with the rhizomatic basal half creeping, the rest suberect, carrying 5 to 8, all along the apical 1/2, coriaceous-succulent, lanceolate, sometimes oblique, acute leaves that blooms in the summer on a terminal, sessile, .6 to .76" [1.5 to 1.9 cm] long including the flower, single flowered inflorescence arising through a single, obliquely obovate, rounded apically, tubular, conduplicate spathe and with a floral bract that is hidden within the spathe and carrying resupinate, waxy, ochre colored flowers.

"Epidendrum gnomoides belongs to the GROUP Porpax SUBGROUP Porpax, characterized by the usually small, creeping plants, fleshy succulent leaves, wide-oblique spathaceous bract and solitary or few-flowered, with a fleshy, often shiny, showy lip. The new species is very small, the leaves up to .64" [14 mm] long, the ochre flowers .48" [12 mm] tall, with ovate-elliptic sepals, and a wide, reniform lip, and an elongate inflated vesicle. Epidendrum gnomus has somewhat larger flowers, about .68" [17 mm] tall, an ovate lip, longer than wide, a short, nectary forming a globose vesicle near the apex of the ovary, and ovate-triangular sepals. Epidendrum mathewsii Rchb. f. which also grows in the region has larger plants, flowers about .8" [20 mm] tall, with the lip reniform, convex, 3-keeled with entire margins, and a relatively thin, elongate vesicle." Hagsater etal 2004

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Orchidacearum 7 Plate 739 Hagsater & Sanchez 2004 drawing fide;

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