Epidendrum minutiflorum C.Schweinf. 1943 GROUP Alpicolum SUBGROUP Alpicolum
Photo by © Alexander Hirtz
Photo by Ecuagenera and their Ecuador Orchid Website
TYPE Drawing by © Jimenez and The AMO Herbaria Website
LATE
EARLY 
Common Name or Meaning The Small Flowered Epidendrum
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Ecuador and Peru at elevations of 1600 to 2600 meters as a small sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with slender, more or less arcuate, provided with numerous, small branches, all enveloped by close, tubular, evanescent sheaths and carrying 1 to 4 per branch, distichous, subterete, filiform, abruptly acute to apiculate, ascending to spreading leaves that blooms in the late fall, winter, spring and early summer on a terminal, peduncle more or less concealed by a slender, conduplicate, scarious spathe, racemose above, rachis short, loose, to 1.8" [4.5 cm] long, successively several, 7 to 19 flowered inflorescence with much shorter than the ovary, narrowly triangular, acuminate floral bracts and carrying non-resupinate, white to green-white flowers with a rose purple anther and the disc of the lip with a few rose-purple dots.
"The species at first sight looks somewhat like Epidendrum gracillimum Rchb.f. & Warsz., but the inflorescence is simple, racemose, erect, straight, flowers secund, non-resupinate, white to green-white, the anther rose-purple, and the thickened mid-rib about equal to the calli, fits in very well with the GROUP Alpicolum SUBGROUP Alpicolum characterized by the simple, cane-like stems, long, narrow 1 to 3 spathaceous bracts, fox-tail-like inflorescence and numerous flowers with fleshy lip. Though this species seems to be in the process of losing the spathe and the lateral lobes of the lip. Epidendrum gracillimum and related species have flowers that are much more delicate, thiner, somewhat hyaline, and purplish, and the inflorescence is paniculate, arching, with short, several-flowered racemes. Epidendrum schlimii Rchb.f. is vegetatively very similar, but the inflorescence is paniculate to racemose, much longer than the stems, the peduncle flexuous provided with 2 to 3 ancipitose bracts. Epidendrum rolfeanum F.Lehm. & Kraenzl. has linear leaves 2 to 2.4" [5 to 6 cm] long, and a flexuous, paniculate inflorescence, filiform petals, lip reniform, and the nectary forming a large inflated ventral vesicle behind the perianth. Epidendrum boscoënse Hágsater & Dodson, of the Alpicolum Group is vegetatively very similar, but the flowers are green, and the lip trulliform, with the base obcuneate, and the mid-rib of the lip reaching its apex. Epidendrum selaginella Schltr. and Epidendrum miserrimum Lindl. also have small plants, but these species have caespitose, unbranched plants and the inflorescence longer than the leaves and are both in the GROUP Epidanthus." Hagsater etal 2016
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orchids of Peru Vol 2 Schweinfurth 1959 drawing good; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 2 Dodson 2001 photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum 15[2] Plate 1588 Hagsater & Santiago 2016 drawing/photo fide; Orquideas, Tesoro de Colombia Vol 2 Ortiz & Uribe 2017 photo fide;
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