Epidendrum modestissimum F.Lehm. & Kraenzl. 1899 GROUP Andean SUBGROUP Anthropophorum

Photo by © Diego Calderon and his Flickr Birding and Orchid Photo Website

Drawing

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

Full shade Cold LATERsummer EARLIERFall

Common Name The Most Modest Epidendrum

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in the Cordillera Central of Antioquia and the Cordillera Oriental of Cundinamarca departments of Colombia in cloud forests at elevations of 2600 to 3000 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphyte with branching near the apex, canelike, terete, thin, short branched stems carrying 2 on the branches, usually one persistent, subcoriaceous, oblong-lanceolate, truncate and unequally bilobed apically, entire margin, smooth leaves that blooms in the later spring through earlier fall on a terminal, erect, racemose, arching-nutant, occuring only once, short, terete, thin, .4" [1 cm] long, simultaneously 1 to 5 flowered inflorescence with much shorter than the ovary, triangular, acute floral bracts and carrying resupinate, white flowers.

"Epidendrum modestissimum belongs to the GROUP Andean SUBGROUP Anthropophorum, recognized by the branching habit on a monopodial foot, oblong, bilobed leaves, adpressed sheaths and 3-lobed, bicallose lip, and a glomerulose, very short inflorescence; the column is much thickened towards the apex. The species is recognized by the small habit and white flowers, the short, oblong-lanceolate, truncate, unequally bilobed leaves, the dolabriform lateral lobes of the lip and the oblong-rectangular midlobe, retuse at the apex, without forming prominent divergent lobes. It is vegetatively very similar to Epidendrum anthropophorum Rchb. f. which also has white flowers but the lip has long lateral lobes and the bilobed, divaricate, shorter lobes of the midlobe, which, with the narrow, rectangular isthmus of the lip give it an anthropoid-like appearance." Hagsater etal 2006

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. Beih. 7: 249 Schlechter 1920; Icones Orchidacearum 8 Plate 855 Hagsater & Sanchez 2006 drawing good; Orquideas, Tesoro de Colombia Vol 2 Ortiz & Uribe 2017 drawing/photo fide;

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