Epidendrum mormontoyi Collantes & Hágsater 2015 GROUP Andean SUBGROUP Renilabium
TYPE Photo by © Collantes and The AMO Herbaria Website
Common Name Mormontoy’s Epidendrum [Peruvian Minister of Culture current]
Flower Size .48” [2 cm]
Found in southern Peru near Machu Picchu at elevations around 2700 meters as a medium to large sized, cold growing epiphyte or terrestrial with simple, cane-like, subterete, slightly laterally compressed stems carrying numerous, coriaceous, distichous, articulate, ovate-oblong, obtuse, minutely sub mucronate, margin entire though minutely and irregularily dentate apically leaves that blooms in the spring on a terminal, without a spathe, racemose, occuring only once, peduncle .88” [1.21 cm] long, complanante, slightly ancipitose, arcuate-nutant, densely, nearly simultaneously 13 flowered inflorescence with ovate-triangular, aristate, the lower ones 1/3 rd the length of the ovary, progressively shorter above, clasping floral bracts and carrying resupinate flowers with the sepals, petals and lip a light green, the calli creamy green surrounded by a light brown suffusion.
" Epidendrum mormontoyi belongs to the GROUP Andean SUBGROUP Renilabium which is characterized by the tall plants, monopodial habit, generally large, bilobed leaves, racemose inflorescence, entire or 3-lobed lip with a channel at the base of the disc between the calli; but differs in having non-branching stems with a sympodial habit, and acute leaves. The species is recognized by the simple, cane-like stems, arching nutant racemose inflorescence, deeply 3-lobed lip, pale green flowers, suffused with brown around the laminar calli; bicallose, the calli somewhat sigmoid, conspicuously laminar, with a channel at the base of the disc between the calli, turning into a wide, low, fleshy rib, conspicuously liguliform, that runs the length of the lip and ends in a wide mucro in the apical sinus; lateral lobes transversely and asymmetrically pentagonal, external margin minutely papillose; mid-lobe transversely quadrate, apex somewhat bilobed, the lobes rounded. Epidendrum inamoenum Kraenzl. is very similar, though the plants are monopodial and branching, flowers are similarly colored and shaped, but smaller, the sepals are .36 to .4" [9 to 10 mm] long, petals .28 to .32 x .12 to .16" [7 to 8 x 3 to 4 mm], and column .24" [6 mm] long, the lip is proportionately broader than long, and the floral segments apically obtuse. Epidendrum x renipichinchae Hágsater & E.Santiago also has a 3-lobed lip, somewhat larger flowers, sepals .64 to .72" [16 to 18 mm] long, and creamy-yellow, the lateral lobes of the lip are dolabriform, margin minutely erose." Hagsater etal 2013
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Orchidacearum 15 [1] Plate 1542 Hagsater & Collantes 2015 drawing fide;
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