Epidendrum melanoporphyreum Hágsater 1993 GROUP Pseudepidendrum SUBGROUP Paniculatum
Photo by © Eric Hunt, plant grown by John & Martha Larimer
Photo by © Carlos Hajek and his Peruvian Orchid Page
Drawing TYPE Drawing by © Jimenez, Hágsater & E.Santiago and The AMO Herbario Website
EARLY
Common Name The Black-Purple Epidendrum
Flower Size 1 1/4" [3.2 cm]
Found in Peru as a small to medium sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte in wet montane forests high in the canopy at elevations around 1300 meters with slender, erect stems enveloped by close, tubular, articulated, foliaceous sheaths with oblong to narrowly lanceolate, acuminate, thin, deciduous, light green, conduplicate, clasping at the base leaves that blooms in nature in the winter and early spring on a terminal, provided with 2 to 3 basal bracts, racemose or paniculate, 5" [12.5 cm] long, loosely flowered, purple inflorescence with triangular, long-acuminate floral bracts and carries a few large [in comparison to the plant], distinctly colored flowers.
"Epidendrum melanoporphyreum looks vegetatively like most members of the GROUP Pseudepidendrum SUBGROUP Paniculatum characterized by the caespitose habit with cane-like stems carrying acute to acuminate leaves usually booming on an apical inflorescence and carrying flowers with filiform petals, and a usually 3 lobed lip with 3 parallel fleshy keels, with the apical lobe often bifurcate and the "bird wing" type pollina. The species can be easily distingllished by the very dark purple, nearly black flowers except for the green base of the column and the violet apex of the column and disc of the lip. The flowers are relatively large for the group, the sepals being .8" [20 mm] long, and the lip has the apical lobes widely divaricate, being wider across them than across the basal lobes. Other than clearly being a member of the SUBGROUP Paniculatum , it does not seem to be especially c1osely related to any particular species." Hagsater etal 1993
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Orchidacearum 2 Plate 156 Hagsater 1993 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 466 Bennett & Christenson 1998 drawing fide; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Las Orquideas del Peru Izerskyy & Bezverhov 2011 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 81 #1 2012 photo fide;
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