Epidendrum scalpelligerum Rchb.f. 1865

Photo by © Eric Hagsater

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Common Name The Scalpel Carring Epidendrum [Refers to the shape of the plant]

Flower Size .128" [3.2 mm]

Found infrequently in Cuba and Jamaica at elevations around 500 meters as a mini-miniature sized, hot to warm growing, caespitose epiphyte with arcuate, anicpitose stems enveloped completely by 4 to 5, non-articulate, distichous, conduplicate, laterally compressed, triangular, falcate, acute, thick-coriaceous leaves that blooms in the late fall and winter on a terminal, sessile, distichous, slender, 3 to 5 flowered inflorescence with imbricating, covering the flowers, similar to the leaves floral bracts and carrying non-resupinate flowers.

Synonyms Epidendrum complicatum Griseb. 1866; Pleuranthium scalpelligerum (Rchb. f.) Cogn 1920

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Catalogo Descriptivo de las Orquideas Cubanas Acuna 1938 as Pleuranthium scapelligerum; Orchidaceae Antillanae Nir 2000; Icones Orchidacearum 11 Plate 1139 Hagsater 2008 see recognition section; Orchid Flora of the Greater Antilles Ackerman 2014;

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