Epidendrum lacerum Lindley 1838 GROUP Secundum SUBGROUP Secundum

Photo by © Greg Butler and Oak Hill Gardens Website

Drawing

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

Common Name The Torn Epidendrum [refers to the irregularily divided by deep divisions lip margin]

Flower Size .8" [2 cm]

Found in eastern Cuba and apparently extinct? as a medium to large sized terrestrial with an erect, thin stem carrying distichous, oblong-lanceolate, obtuse, thick, fleshy, rich shining green leaves that blooms in the fall on an erect, terminal, straight, elongate many flowered inflorescence carrying non-resupinate, successively opening flowers.

Kew gives this one as a synonym of E secundum but I follow Hagsater and keep them separate.

"Epidendrum lacerum belongs to the GROUP Secundum SUBGROUP Secundum, which is characterized by the caespitose habit, terete stems with several oblong-elliptic, acute to bilobed, distichous leaves, the scape elongate, with a short, apical raceme of successive, non-resupinate flowers, with a complicated, plurituberculate callus. The species is recognized by the narrow leaves, pale pink flowers, narrow, acuminate, 3-veined, sepals, acute petals and the lip with the lateral lobes much larger than the apical lobe which is about 5 times wider than the width of the lobes. It resembles Epidendrum secundum Jacq. from the lesser Antilles which has smaller flowers, the petals oblanceolate-cuneate, obtuse, somewhat oblique and 3-veined, the sepals obliquely obovate, obtuse, 3-veined , with the lateral veins branching so as to appear 6-veined above, the lip trapezoidal in outline, wider than long, the margin deeply fimbriate, the lateral lobes larger than the apical lobes, the apical lobe widely flabellate, truncate. Epidendrum ackermanii Hágsater an endemic from Puerto Rico has lanceolate, acute leaves, rhombic, straight, 5-veined petals, elliptic, acute, straight, 5-veined sepals and a subquadrate lip in general outline, slightly longer than wide, the outline irregular dentate-laciniate, the lip formed by subequal, suborbicular lobes, the apical ones being somewhat larger; the flowers are pink, with a white blotch on lhe disc covenng more than lhe callus. In Cuba it is vegetatlvely similar to E. wrightll Lindl. whlch has orange flowers, a deltate-ovate lip, V-shaped callus, prolonged into a central keel. It has been confused wlth Epidendrum flexuosum G. Meyer (syn: E. imatophyllum Lindl.) a myrmecophilous specles from the mainand, whlch has a somewhat similar shaped lip though generally longer, and two símple calli with a thin narrow, long keel in tne middle." Hagsater etal 2006

Synonyms Amphiglottis lacera (Lindl.) Britton 1924

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Catalogo Descriptivo de las Orquideas Cubanas Acuna 1938 as Amphiglottis lacera; Icones Orchidacearum Part 8 Plate 848 Hagsater 2006 drawing fide; Orchid Flora of the Greater Antilles Ackerman 2014

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