IOSPE PHOTOS

Epidendrum minus (Cogn.) Hágsater 1999 GROUP Nocturnum SUBGROUP Nocturnum

Photos By Š the Ecodomato Website

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

Common Name or Meaning The Least Epidendrum

Flower Size 2.6" [3.5 cm]

Found in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Surinam and Brazil along river banks and in seasonally inundated forests at elevations of 100 to 1900 meters as a small to medium sized, hot to cool growing epiphyte or lithophyte with simple, terete basally, laterally compressed towards the apex, cane-like stems carrying 5 to 9, coriaceous, distributed along the apical 2/3's of the stem, elliptic, rounded to bilobed, mucronate, slightly carinate leaves that blooms at most any time of the year on a terminal, racemose, pluriracemose in time, successively 1 to 3 flowered inflorescence with much shorter than the ovary, amplexicaul, triangular, acute floral bracts.

"Epidendrum mininocturnum belongs to the GROUP Nocturnum which is characterized by the sympodial, caespitose plants, short, racemose or pluri-racemose inflorescence, without spathaceous bracts, usually large, star-shaped flowers, with similar sepals and petals, and the SUBGROUP Nocturnum which has cane-like stems, non-thickened towards the middle, and usually successive flowers; the flowers are mostly indistinguishable in shape. The species can be recognized by the laterally compressed, ancipitose, stems with 5 to 9, lanceolate leaves distributed along the upper 2/3 of the stems, 4:1 to 6:1, 1.8 to 4.6" x .32 to .8" [4.5 to 11.5 x 0.8 to 2.0 cm], sepals .88 to 1.4" [22 to 32 mm] long, lateral lobes of the lip free from the mid-lobe, divergent, ovary .84 to 1.32" [21 to 33 mm] long. Epidendrum longicolle Lindl. has 5 to 12 linear-lanceolate leaves distributed throughout the stem, 10:1 to 20:1, 2 to 6" x .2 to .32" [5 to 15 x 0.5 to 0.8 cm], larger flowers, sepals 1.12 to 1.68" [28 to 42 mm] long, lateral lobes of the lip united to the mid-lobe along 1/3 to 1/2 their length, ovary 1.2 to 1.6" [30 to 40 mm] long. Epidendrum micronocturnum Carnevali & G.Romero has stems with 2 to 6 leaves distributed along the apical half, the leaves .16 to .24" [0.4 to 0.6 cm] wide, and small flowers, sepals .6 to .8" [15 to 20 mm] long. Epidendrum mininocturnum Dodson, known only from the Pacific slope of the Andes in southern Colombia and northern Ecuador has shorter plants with, 4 to 5 narrow leaves, .32 to .8" [8 to 20 mm] wide, the lateral lobes of the lip with numerous thickened veins." Hagsater etal 2010

Synonyms *Epidendrum nocturnum var. minus Cogn. 1906; Epidendrum oliganthum Schltr. 1921