Epidendrum platystigma Rchb.f. 1866 GROUP Ramosum SUBGROUP Platystigma
Photo by © Melania Munoz and The Bosque de Paz Biological Preserve Webpage
Specimen by © Field Museum Webpage
TYPE Drawing by © Jimenez, Hágsater & E.Santiago and The AMO Herbario Website
MID
Common Name The Very Wide Bracted Epidendrum [refers to the floral bracts on the short inflorescence]
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Costa Rica in cloud forests and pastures at elevations of 1400 to 3150 meters as a giant sized, cool to cold growing epiphtye with a branching, cane-like, terete, tall, thick main stem, the secondary stem and flowering branches short, thinner, producung new branches from the subapical internodes of the previous branch and carrying 6 to 12, all along the main stem, branches with 2 to 4, coriaceous, narrowly lanceolate, unequally bilobed leaves that blooms in the summer through earlier fall on a terminal, racemose, erect, distichous, short, laterally compressed, fractiflex inflorescence with 1 to 2, tubular, acuminate, imbricating bracts and conduplicate, much longer than the ovary, oblong-triangular, acuminate floral bacts and carrying 3 to 9, simultaneously opening, distichous, fragrant [jasmine] flowers with the lip facing the rachis.
Characterized by the narrowly lanceolate to oblong-elliptic, bilobed to retuse leaves that blooms on a racemose, inflorescence with white flowers, lanceolate, acute sepals that are .12 to .2" [3 to 5 mm] wide, a concave, sub-triangular, basally truncate lip with a laminar, tridentate callus, a straight, short column widening towards the apex, a clinandrium that slightly surpasses the apex of the column and a straight ovary.
"Epidendrum platystigma Rchb.f. belongs to the GROUP Ramosum which is characterized by th e monopodial, branching stems, the spike-like, distichous inflorescence, and the single callus, and the SUBGROUP Platystigma which has monopodiaí, erect plants with a clear primary stem, branching occurs from the axil of the leaves, producing short, few, small leaved branches, and these produce successive, short branches from a subapical internode, thus an old plant has numerous branches, these progressively made of fewer elements, and often lacking the juvenile, long leaves, at this stage the plant attains full flowering and often dies. The species is recognized by the narrowly lanceolate leaves on the main stem 2.8 to 5.8" x .4 to .8" [7 to 14 x 1 to 2 cm], the 6 to 9 flowered inflorescence, the flowers white with the column green, the ovary arched, forming an angle of less than 45° with the column, sepals .12 to .2" [3 to 5 mm] wide, lanceolate acute, and the lip cordiform with a tridentate laminar callus, the teeth acute. It is very similar to Epidendrum ramonianum Schltr. which has 3 to 6 white flowers, the column rarely green, the ovary strongly arched and forming a 90° angle with the column, the lip suborbicular, sometlmes apiculate. Epidendrum platyphyllostigma Hágsater & García-Cruz has wider leaves on the main stem, .8 to 1.8" [2 to 4.5 cm] wide, pale green flowers, and a suborbicular lip wlth an entire callus." Hagsater etal 2007
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; The Genus Epidendrum Ames 1936; The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946 drawing fide; Ceiba Vol 5 No 1 L O Williams 1956; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 1324 Atwood 1989 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 1 Plate 36 Hagsater & Sanchez 1990 see recognition section; Field Guide to the Orchids of Costa Rica and Panama Dressler 1993; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 301 Hagsater 1999 see recogntion section; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 314 Hagsater & Sanchez 1999 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 316 Hagsater & Sanchez 1999 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 318 Hagsater & Sanchez 1999 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 340 Hagsater & Sanchez 1999 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 367 Hagsater 1999 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 372 Hagsater 1999 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 397 Hagsater 1999 see recognition section; Manual de las Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Icones Orchidacearum 9 Plate 975 Hagsater 2007 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 9 Plate 977 Hagsater 2007 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 11 Plate 1127 Hagsater 2008 see recognition section;
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