Epidendrum pterostele Hágsater & Dodson 2001 GROUP Alpicolum SUBGROUP Dialychilum

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

Common Name The Winged Column Epidendrum

Flower Size .4” [1 cm]

Found in northern Ecuador in wet montane forests on the upper eastern slope of the Andes at elevations around 2000 meters as a small sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with simple, cane-like, thin, terete, 5 to 7 internoded stem carrying 3 to 4, articulate, all along tha pical half of the stem, linear-lanceolate, acuminate, dorsal keel, unequal, progressively larger above leaves that blooms in the summer on a terminal, on a mature stem, arising through a narrow, acuminate, spathe that envelopes the peduncle that is 1.2” [3 cm] long, rachis to 1.6” [4 cm] long, racemose, erect-arcuate, shorter than the leaves, successively few, 18 to 22 flowered inflorescence with the apical flowers opening first then back towards the peduncle, with up to twice as long as the ovary, very narrow, linear-lanceolate, acuminate floral bracts and carrying pink-green flowers.

" Epidendrum pterostele belongs to the GROUP Alpicolum SUBGROUP Dialychilum and is recognized by the free, narrowly elliptic, acute lip, the filiform petals, and the short column with a prominent, irregular clinandrium prolonged on both sides at the base into wings; the stigmatic cavity occupies the apical half of the ventral surface, the basal half prominently sulcate. The species is closely related to and simpatric with E. dialychilum in which the stigmatic cavity occupies nearly the whole underside of the column, the column is widened towards the middle. Epidendrum rhopalostele Hágsater & Dodson has a thin, club-shaped column, with the stigmatic cavity occupying about 1/3 of the underside and a reduced clinandrium. Epidendrum dialyrhombicum Hágsater & Dodson has smaller flowers, the sepals .12 to .16" [3 to 4 mm] long, the lip free from the column, rhombic with a long narrow claw perpendicular to the base of the lip and then turning up and parallel to it, the column with the rostellum projecting beyond the rest of the body." Hagsater etal 2001

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Orchidacearum 4 Plate 434 Hagsater 2001 see recognition section; * Icones Orchidacearum 4 Plate 475 Hagsater & Dodson 2001 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 4 Plate 481 Hagsater 2001 see recognition section;

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