Epidendrum mimopsis Hágsater & Dodson 2004 GROUP Secundum SUBGROUP Secundum

TYPE Drawing by © Lopez and The AMO Herbaria Website

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Mimicing E Mimeticum Epidendrum

Flower Size 1” [2.5 cm]

Found in southernmost Ecuador on the eastern slope of the Andes at elevations around 1000 meters as a medium to large sized, warm to cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with simple, cane-like, terete, thin, straight stems carrying numerous, all along apical 2/3rds of the stem, coriaceous, smooth, oblong-lanceolate, rounded, slightly bilobed, margin entire leaves that blooms in the late summer and early fall on a terminal, racemose, peduncle elongate, terete, thin, enveloped almost completely by acute, tubular bracts, 10.8” [27 cm] long, rachis 2” [5 cm] long, terete, in an umbel, successively 8 to 16 flowered inflorescence with much shorter than the ovary, triangular, lanceolate acuminate floral bracts and carrying resupinate, all in one horizontal plane, purple flowers with the calli and keel yellow.

"Epidendrum mimopsis belongs to the GROUP Secundum SUBGROUP Secundum which is characterized by the caespitose habit, simple, terete, stems, numerous, oblong-elliptic, bilobed leaves, mostly elongate inflorescence, with a raceme of successive fiowers, the lip with two calli and a prominent, flexuous keel. The species is recognized by the flowers being presented in one plane, as in an umbell, the lip mostly facing outwards, purple-colored with yellow calli and keel, the lip deeply fimbriate with the midlobe flabellate, barely emarginate. It closely resembles Epidendrum mimeticum which has slightly larger, variously colored flowers, also in one plane, but the lip facing inwards, with narrower petals and midlobe of the lip. Epidendrum thermophilum Hágsater & Dodson, from the very hot, dry valley below Ibarra, Imbabura, on the western slopes of the Andes in northwestern Ecuador has similar flowers and flower color, but these are smaller, upright, non-resupinate, and larger plants. Epidendrum macrocarpum L. C. Rich. is epiphytic, associated with ants, and has larger, orange flowers." Hagsater etal 2004

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Orchidacearum 7 Plate 761 Hagsater & Dodson 2004 drawing fide;

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