Epidendrum mutelianum Cogn.1910 GROUP Mutelianum Type for the group
Photo by C & P Guezennec © and their Guadeloupe Blog Page
Photo by Richard Gautier © and his Guadeloupe Orchid Page
Common Name Mutel's Epidendrum [French Botanist 1800's]
Flower Size 1.2" [3 cm]
Found in Puerto Rico and Guadeloupe in wet montane forests at elevations of 400 to 1400 meters as a medium to large sized, hot to cool growing epiphyte with an erect to ascending, slender, terete, stem carrying distally distichous, rigid, coriaceous, narrowly ovate-oblong to lanceolate-elliptic, acute leaves that blooms in the spring on a terminal, erect, few flowered, racemose inflorescence arising through a narrow spathe with triangular, acuminate floral bracts and carrying deep yellow flowers.
"Epidendrum mutelianum is the type of the GROUP Mutelianum characterized by the sympodial habit, simple stems, apical, paniculate inflorescence subtended by several imbricating bracts, 3-lobed lip and the petals as wide or wider than the sepals. The species has cream colored flowers, the apex of the column somewhat tinged purple and found in the lesser Antillies. Epidendrum boricuomutelianum can be recognized by the caespitose habit, 3 to 5, narrowly elliptic leaves distributed towards the apex of the laterally compressed stems, erect racemose to paniculate inflorescence with the pedunde shorter than the apical leaf and the orange-yellow, desitogamous flowers, the lip 3-lobed with the midlobe triangular, rounded. . They are both similar to Epidendrum pallidiflorum Hooker, but that species has greenish cream flowers with purple lines and a longer peduncle of the inflorescence more than 4" [10 cm] long. They are somewhat similar to Epidendrum patens Sw., which has a longer peduncle to 4" [10 cm] long, subrhombic, white flowers with purplé dots at the base of the lip and the apex of the column, and the lip bilobed at the apex, the lobes divergent." Adapted from Epidendrum boricuomutelianum Icones Orchidacearum 7 plate 711 Hagsater etal 2004
Synonyms Epidendrum flavum Mutel 1843; Epidendrum mutelianum f. brevifolium Cogn. ex Stehlé 1939; Epidendrum mutelianum var. genuinum Stehlé 1939; Epidendrum mutelianum var. mirabile Stehlé 1939
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Symbolae Antillanae Vol VI Orchidaceae Urban 1909; Flore Descriptive des Antilles Francaises H. Stehle 1939; Flore Descriptive des Antilles Francaises H. Stehle 1939 as E mutelianum var genuina drawing good; Flore Descriptive des Antilles Francaises H. Stehle 1939 as E mutelianum f brevifolium; Flore Descriptive des Antilles Francaises H. Stehle 1939 as E mutelianum var mirabilis drawing good; Flora of the Lesser Antilles Garay & Sweet 1974 drawing fide; The Orchids of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands Ackerman 1995; An Orchid Flora Of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands Ackerman 1995; Orchidaceae Antillanae Nir 2000; Icones Orchidacearum 7 plate 711 Hagsater & Salazar 2004 see recognition section;
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