IOSPE PHOTOS

Epidendrum renilabioides Hágsater & Dodson 2001 GROUP Andean SUBGROUP Renilabium

TYPE Drawing by R Jimenez M and The AMO Herbaria Website

Common Name The Similar to E renilabium-Like Epidendrum

Flower Size 1.2" [3 cm]

Found in north central Ecuador in wet forests on moss covered rocks at elevations around 2500 meters as a giant sized, cold growing lithophyte with cane-like, branching near the apex, the branches producing new short branches, erect, straight, terete stems carrying numerous, all along the stem, oblong, unequally bilobed, coriaceous, margin entire leaves that blooms in the summer and fall on a terminal, without a spathe, arising on the main stem and the branches, racemose, arching-nutant, peduncle short, terete, successively few, many flowered inflorescence with triangular, acute, much shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying resupinate, opening from the apex back to the base, eventually all open simultaneously flowers with brown-purple on the outside, sepals green inside, petals and lip bronzy, greenish white and the column and callus are white.

"Epidendrum renilabioides is part of GROUP Andean SUBGROUP Renilabium characterized by the tall plants, monopodial habit, generally large, bilobed leaves, racemose inflorescence, entire or 3-lobed lip with a channel at the base of the disc between the calli. The species is recognized by the flowers which start opening from the apex of the raceme backwards, the flowers brown-purple on the outside, inside the sepals green, petals and lip whitish-bronzy green, the column and callus white, the lip not deeply sinuate at the apex, minutely apiculate, the callus is "Y" shaped and even. Epidendrum renilabium has concolor green flowers, the lip deeply emarginate at the apex with a fleshy, thick apex of the central keel protruding in the sinus; the callus is formed by two distinct laminar calli with an additional growth on each side, apical flowers opening first. In other species in this group the flowers open as usual from the base to the apex of the raceme. Epidendrum pazii Hágsater has cream-green flowers with an agreeable fragrance, leaves .18" [45 mm] wide and is found further north in Colombia. Epidendrum anderssonii Hágsater & Dodson, found on the eastern slopes of the Andes, from Colombia to Bolivia, has leaves .64 to 1.12" [16 to 28 mm] wide and green-colored flowers, with no fragrance reported. " Hagsater etal 2004

Synonyms

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