~Epidendrum pentacarinatum Hágsater & Dodson 1999 - See Epidendrum gratissimum (Rchb.f.) Hágsater & Dodson 1992 GROUP Diothonea SUBGROUP Diothonea

TYPE Drawing by © R Jimenez M and The AMO Herbaria Website

Common Name The 5 Keel Epidendrum

Flower Size .8” [2 cm]

Found in northern Ecuador in wet mossy scrub in paramo at elevations around 3500 meters as a small to medium sized, cold growing lithophyte with cane-like, branching from near the apex, terete stems carrying numerous, apical, narrowly lanceolate, bilobed, coriaceous, margin entire leaves that blooms in the fall on a terminal, without a spathe, on mature stems, racemose, arcuate-nutant, peduncle terete, not ornamented, nearly simultaneously 6 to 15 flowered inflorescence with less than half as long as the ovary, narrowly triangular floral bracts and carrying resupinate, non fragrant flowers with the sepals greenish yellow, the petals and lip ochre yellow the keels of the lip yellowish, the column green and apically marked with purple and the anther is cream colored.

"The species is recognized by its branching habit, with narrowly lanceolate leaves .24 to .48" [6 to 12 mm] wide, and the simple, nutant raceme with yellowish-copper flowers. The column has a very narrow ventral slit, with an incipient column foot, with the lip 5- keeled and suborbicular, the base truncate, not cuneate, the midlobe formed by two small semicircular lobes, the sinus widely mucronate. It is similar to E. lloense, but that species has 3 laminar, erose keels on the lip which is obovate, widely cuneate at the base. Both species have the column joined to the lip and form an elongate aperture with the sides involute and belong to the Diothonea group" Hagsater etal 1999

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 369 Hagsater 1999 drawing fide;

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