Epidendrum pollardii Hágsater 1993 GROUP Ramosum SUBGROUP Mirabile

TYPE Drawing by © Hagsater and The AMO Herbaria Website

LATE THROUGH MID

Common Name Pollard’s Epidendrum [American Orchid enthusiast and Mexican Orchid Expert 1900’s]

Flower Size .8” [3 cm]

Found in Guerrero and Oaxaca states of Mexico in tall evergreen forests at elevations around 1000 meters as a large to giant sized, warm to cool growing, hanging epiphyte with pendent, branching, cane-like, terete, slightly flexuous stems carrying narrowly lanceolate, bilobed, coriaceous, fleshy leaves that blooms in the later spring, summer through mid-fall on a terminal, on the secondary branches, 1 to 2 flowered inflorescence with as long as the ovary, ovate floral bracts and carrying back to back held, nocturnally fragrant, deep brown to greenish brown flowers.

"Epidendrum pollardii is part of GROUP Ramosum SUBGROUP Mirabile characterized by the pendent plants, successive stems produced from a middle internode of the previous stem, without any evident main stem; the flowers white to purple and mostly very fragrant. The long, hanging, branching plants with fleshy, coriaceous leaves less than 2.8" [7 cm] long, flowering from short floral branches, with one or two deep brown to greenish-brown f1owers, the floral segments .36 to .56" [9 to 14 mm} long, and the lip f1at, not enclosing the column, distinguish this species from its relatives. It is similar to E. singuliflorum Schltr. and E. acunae Dressler. but E . singuliflorum has leaves and flowers of a similar size, but the flowers are usually singly produced and the lip is constricted near the middle. E. acunae has larger leaves on the main stem, 4 to 4.8" [10 to 12 cm] long, and larger flowers, sepals .52 to .76" [13 to 19 mm] long (see Hágsater 1990a, 1990b)". Hagsater etal 1993

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Orchidacearum 2 Plate 176 Hagsater & Dodson 1993 drawing fide; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018

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