Epidendrum kerichilum Hágsater 1988 GROUP Difforme
Photo by © Hagsater & Dressler and The Epidendra Website
TYPE Drawing by © Jimenez, Hágsater & E.Santiago and The AMO Herbario Website
THROUGH EARLY 
Common Name The Waxy Lip Epidendrum
Flower Size 1.6" [4 cm]
Found in western Panama in tropical forests and cloud forests at elevations around 1700 to 2300 meters as a small sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with simple, canelike, somewhat laterally compressed, flexuous stems carrying 7 to 13, all along the stem, subcoriaceous, lanceolate to widely elliptic, retuse, smooth, margin entire, green leaves that blooms in the winter through early spring on an erect, terminal, on a mature stem, occuring only once, corymbose, peduncle short, simultaneously 3 to 4 flowered inflorescence with much shorter than the ovary, conduplicate, triangular, acute floral bracts and carrying resupinate, sweetly fragrant flowers.
"Epidendrum kerichilum 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 flowers to corymbose, without spathaceous bracts, fleshy green to yellowish-green, rarely white flowers. The species can be recognized by the somewhat laterally compressed stems, 3 to 4 pale green flowers, the lip entire, cordiform, of a waxy nature, ivory-colored and lustrous, the column arched in the middle prominent clinandrium-hood with the margln erose-dentate. It is similar to E. odontochilum Hágsater, which is found along the Atlantic slope of Costa Rica and Panama, and has the veins of the leaves clearly marked, a 3-lobed lip, with the margins of the lateral lobes dentate, the column with a prominent tooth on each side, and the clinandrium-hood deeply fimbriate. Epidendrum storkii Ames is common from central Costa Rica to central Panama, also has evidently marked veins of the leaves, and a 3-lobed lip with a very short midlobe recessed in between the lateral lobes, subquadrate at the base and triangular at the apex, and the clinandrium-hood deeply fimbriate." Hagsater etal 2007
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Orquídea (Mexico City), n.s., 11: 26 Hagsater 1988 drawing/photo fide; Field Guide to the Orchids of Costa Rica and Panama Dressler 1993; Icones Orchidacearum 9 Plate 950 Hagsater 2007 drawing fide; Orchids of the Darien Gap Kolanowska 2014;
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