Epidendrum parviflorum Ruiz & Pav.1798 GROUP Pseudepidendrum SUBGROUP Paniculatum
Photo by © Eric Hunt
Photo by Ecuagenera and their Ecuador Orchid Website
TYPE Drawing by © Jimenez, Hágsater & E.Santiago and The AMO Herbario Website
Common Name or Meaning The Small Flowered Epidendrum
Flower Size .6" [1.5 cm]
Found in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia in dense shade in wet montane forests at elevations of 1200 to 2400 meters as a medium to large sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with an erect simple, cane-like, the base covered by tubular, non-foliar, scarious sheaths, becoming fibrous with time, terete, thin stem and carrying all along the apical half, articulate, distichous, narrowly lanceolate, acuminate, dark green, margin entire, basally clasping leaves that blooms in the spring and summer on a terminal, peduncle .8 to 1.2" [2 to 3 cm] long, terete, thin, erect, straight, provided with a prominent, conduplicate, narrowly triangular, acuminate bract, paniculate, few branching, erect, short, nearly as long as the apical leaf, 2.4 to 4,8" [6 to 12 cm] long overall, rachis 1.2 to 4" [3 to 10 cm] long, simultaneously, several flowered inflorescence with much shorter than the ovary to nearly as long, narrowly triangular, acuminate, amplexicaul floral bracts and carrying small, resupinate flowers.
"Epidendrum parviflorum belongs to the GROUP Pseudepidendrum , which is characterized by caespitose plants, cane-like stems, acute to acuminate leaves, apical inflorescences, lacking a spathaceous bract, the petals filiform and the lip usually 3-lobed, with 3 parallel fleshy keels, the apical lobe often bifurcate, and the pollinia “bird-wing” type and SUBGROUP Paniculatum which has bicolor flowers (generally green with the lip and apex of the column white) the disc sometimes marked with purple to red. The species is recognized by the small plants, 16 to 24" [40 to 60 cm] long, narrowly lanceolate, acute leaves, paniculate inflorescence with simultaneous, small flowers, sepals .2" [5 mm long], green with the lip and apical half of the column immaculate white, a single callus, the column thick and short, .14" [3.5 mm] long. Epidendrum macbridei C.Schweinf. has smaller plants 4 to 12" [10 to 30 cm] long, elliptic-lanceolate leaves, inflorescence producing successive racemes with larger flowers, sepals .28 to .34" [7 to 9 mm] long, these also green and white, immaculate, ecallose, the disc with 3 very prominent keels. Epidendrum sucumbiense Hágsater & Dodson, from northern Ecuador, is vegetatively very similar but the column is longer .2" [5 mm], the lip bicallose, with 5 keels, the lateral lobes of the lip sub-orbicular, and the lobes of the mid-lobe oblong. Epidendrum patulipetalum Schltr. [Kew has this one as a synonym of E parviflorum] has linear-lanceolate, acute leaves, .2" [5 mm] long sepals, and the lip is only slightly 3-lobed, bicallose, the calli narrow and prominent. Epidendrum yungasense Rolfe is very similar vegetatively, but the column is thin, .2 to .24" [5 to 6] mm long, the lip bicallose, the calli small, the lateral lobes of the lip are obliquely ovate and the mid-lobe forms a basal isthmus with parallel sides, and is apically bilobed, the lobes slightly divaricate. Epidendrum poeppigii Hágsater has linear-lanceolate, acuminate leaves, strongly reflexed sepals, the lip with the lateral lobes obtuse, and the disc surrounded by a circle of purple dots." Hagsater etal 2013
Synonyms Epidendrum gramineum Lindl. 1831; Epidendrum patulipetalum Schltr. 1921
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. Beih. 9: 91 Peru Schlechter 1921 as E patulipetalum; Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. Beih. Figuren-Atlas 57: 472 Schlechter 1929 as E patulipetalum drawing fide; Orchids of Peru Vol 2 Fieldiana Schweinfurth 1959 as E gramineum; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Series II Orchids of Peru Plate 0068 Dodson & Bennett 1989 drawing fide; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Series II plate 0226 Dodson & Vasquez 1989 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 302 Hagsater & Sanchez 1999 in recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 347 Hagsater & Sanchez 1999 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 4 Plate 471 Hagsater 2001 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 4 Plate 489 Hagsater 2001 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 4 plate 489 Hagsater & Sanchez 2010 as E patulipetalum see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum Vol 8 Plate 875 Hagsater & Sanchez 2006 as E gramineum see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 13 Plate 1333 Hagsater & Santiago 2010 as E patulipetalum See recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 13 Plate 1351 Hagsater 2010 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum Part 13 Plate 1373 Hagsater 2010 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 13 Plate 1373 Hagsater & Dodson 2010 as E patulipetalum See Recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 13 Plate 1376 Hagsater & Dodson 2010 See Recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 14 Plate 1418 Hagsater & Santiago 2013 See recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 14 Plate 1472 Hagsater & Sanchez 2013 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 14 Plate 1472 Hagsater & Sanchez 2013 as E patulipetalum see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 14 Plate 1500 Hagsater & Sanchez 2013 see recognition section; Orchid Digest Vol 79 #3 2015 photo fide; Orquideas, Tesoro de Colombia Vol 2 Ortiz & Uribe 2017 drawing/photo fide;
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