Epidendrum oraion Hágsater 1993 GROUP Cristatum SUBGROUP Cnemidophorum
Photos by © Jay Pfahl
TYPE Drawing by © Jimenez, Hágsater & E.Santiago and The AMO Herbario Website
Common Name The Beautiful Epidendrum
Flower Size 1.2" [3 cm]
Found only in western Colombia at elevations around 1600 meters as a large to giant sized, cool growing terrestrial with erect, simple, reed-like, terete stems enveloped completely by leaf bearing sheaths and carrying all along the stem, narrowly elliptic, subacute, entire, smooth leaves that blooms in the spring on a terminal, arising on a mature stem, occuring ,more than once over the years, racemose, arcuate, 8.8 to 16" [22 to 45 cm] long, successively few, several to many [12 to 24] flowered inflorescence carrying resupinate, fleshy flowers.
"Epidendrum oraion is part of the GROUP Cristatum SUBGROUP Cnemidophorum recognized by the long peduncle of the inflorescence covered by long, imbricating, conduplicate bracts, the successive raceme with the first flowers opening when the apical buds are just developing, and the fuchsia flowers with the lip white with fuchsia margins and with two elongate, white calli with deep fuchsia markings at their apices. This species closely resembles the Costa Rican E. pfavii Rolfe, which can be distinguished by the triangular-dolabriform basal lobes of the lip, which are about as wide as long, and the apical lobes only slightly divergent. Epidendrum quinquepartitum Schltr., from eastern Bolivia, has similar habit and flower color to E . oraion, but the lip is asymmetrically 5-lobed." Hagsater etal 1993
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 2 Escobar 1991 pg 197 fig A197 Type plant photo fide; * Icones Orchidacearum 2 plate 166 Hagsater & Salazar 1993 drawing fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 6 COS 1998 errata = E oraion; Icones Orchidacearum 4 Plate 442 Hagsater 2001 see recognition section; Orquideologia 24: 3 Ortiz & Hagsater 2005 as e cf oraion; Icones Orchidacearum 9 Plate 940 Hagsater 2007 see recognition section; AOS Bulletin Vol 77 No 11 2008 photo fide; Orchid Digest Vol 74 #2 2010 photo fide; Orchids of the Department of Valle De Cauca Colombia Vol 2 Kolanowska, Hagsater etal. 2014 drawing/photo fide; Orquideas, Tesoro de Colombia Vol 2 Ortiz & Uribe 2017 as E macrostachyum drawing/photo fide;
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