Epidendrum molaui Hágsater & Dodson 2001 GROUP Andean SUBGROUP Fritzianum

TYPE Drawing by © Jimenez and The AMO Herbaria Website

Common Name Ulf Molaui’s Epidendrum [Swedish botanist in Ecuador and collector of the type current]

Flower Size .4” [1 cm]

Found in northern Ecuador in humid montane cloud forests at elevations of 3300 to 3600 meters as a giant sized, cold growing terrestrial or epiphyte with cane-like, terete, branching above, with shorter flowering branches, these producing new branches from the upper half of the stem and carrying lanceolate, apical margin apically erose, acute, dorsally carinate leaves the main stems leaves larger than those on the branches, that blooms in the spring and summer on a terminal, from the main stem and the branches, racemose, nutant, simultaneously 9 to 15 flowered inflorescence with shorter than the ovary, triangular, acuminate, floral bracts and carrying resupinate, pale yellow flowers with the sepals and petals with purple dots, disc of the lip burgundy red, and a green column spotted with purple at the apex.

"Epidendrum molaui belongs to the GROUP Andean SUBGROUP Fritzianum characterized by the monopodial stems branched above, the ovate to ovate-elliptic, acute to short acuminate leaves, the lateral sepals obliquely united to the base of the column, and clearly three lobed lip. The species is recognized by the acute, lanceolate leaves, the tall, erect stems with short branches near the top and the nutant inflorescence with an elongate rachis, the flowers spaced some .2" [5 mm] apart, the 3-lobed lip and .28 to .32" [7 to 8 mm] long sepals. It is similar to E. fritzianum which has larger sepals .32 to .4" [8 to 10 mm], green flowers striped with lines of black dots, rounded lateral lobes and a cuneate midlobe, the inflorescence is densely flowered." Hagsater etal 2001

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Orchidacearum 4 Plate 469 Hagsater & Dodson 2001 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum Vol 8 Plate 886 Hagsater & Sanchez 2006 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 13 Plate 1331 Hagsater & Santiago 2010 See recognition section;

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