Epidendrum macbridei C. Schweinf. 1943 GROUP Pseudepidendrum SUBGROUP Turialvae
Photo by © Dale and Deni Borders
Photo by © Patricia Harding
TYPE Drawing by © Jimenez, Hágsater & E.Santiago and The AMO Herbario Website
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Common Name MacBrides' Epidendrum [American Botanist in Peru 1900's ]
Flower Size 3/8" [1 cm]
Found in Ecuador and Peru in wet montane forests from elevations of 900 to 2800 meters as miniature sized, warm to cold growing, caespitose, epiphytic reedstem with slender, leafy stems, with articulate, elliptic-lanceolate, sessile, acuminate leaves that are conduplicate and clasping towards the base and blooms in the summer in cultivation and winter in nature on a terminal, arising on mature canes, short-pedunculate, 1 1.6" [4 cm] long, successively few to several [7 per branch] flowered racemes becoming panicles with successive, fractiflex branches that have lanceolate, acuminate, bracts that are much shorter than the ovaries carrying resupinate, non fragant flowers with the sepals, petals and the basal half of the column green, the apical half of the column and the lip is white.
"Epidendrum macbridei belongs to the GROUP Pseudepidendrum is characterized by caespitose plants, canelike stems, acute to acuminate leaves, apical inflorescence, lacking a spathaceous bract, the petals filiform and the lip usually 3-lobed, with 3 parallel fleshy keels, the apical lobe often bifurcate. SUBGROUP Turialvae which has a racemose and few-flowered inflorescence on an elongate peduncle, usually producing new racemes over the years and thus pluriracemose and the pollinia “bird-wing” type. The species is recognized by the small plants, to 12" [30 cm] tall, producing short successive racemes from the same peduncle, successive flowers with spreading sepals .28 to .36" [7 to 9 mm] long, column .24" [6 mm] long, with a pair of prominent subquadrate wings at the apex, the lip ecallose, disc with 3 thickened, very prominent keels that reach the apical sinus of the lip. Epidendrum poeppigii Hágsater, has taller plants 12 to 27.2" [30 to 68 cm], very long 4 to 8.8" [10 to 22 cm], linear-acuminate leaves, a paniculate inflorescence, sepals strongly reflexed, .12" [3 mm] long column, the lip with a pair of small, sub-globose calli. Epidendrum parviflorum Ruiz & Pavón also has larger plants, stems 16 to 24" [40 to 60 cm] long, with simultaneous small flowers, sepals .2" [5 mm] long, column .14" [3.5 mm] long, and the lip with a single callus." Hagsater etal 2010
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orchids of Peru Vol 2 Fieldiana Schweinfurth 1959; Bot Notiser 130 Lojtnant 1977; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 302 Hagsater 1999 see recogntion section; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 464 Bennett & Christenson 1998 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 13 Plate 1351 Hagsater 2010 drawing ok; Icones Orchidacearum 14 Plate 1472 Hagsater & Sanchez 2013 see recognition section;
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