!Epistephium elatum Kunth 1911
Exposed pollina normally would flip down and be concealed within the anther
Non blooming Plant Photos by Jay Pfahl 1900 meters on cliff side of lake Guatepe 7/23
Photo/Original Drawing by © Padre Pedro Ortiz Conserved at the Herbario de la Universidad Javeriana, Bogota Colombia
LATER
EARLY
Common Name The Stately Epistephium
Flower Size 2.4" [6 cm]
Found in Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador in open humid areas often in deep sphagnum moss at elevations of 1100 to 1900 meters as a large to giant sized, warm growing terrestrial with an erect, terete, glabrous below leafy above, simple stem carrying coriaceous, leathery, alternating, oblong to ovate, aubacute to acuminate, sessile, amplexicaul and round to subcordate below and reticulate, multinerved, glabrous leaves that blooms in the later winter and early spring on a terminal, racemose, 8 to 20" [20 to 50 cm] long, successively 1 to 4, to 10 flowered inflorescence with ovate acute bracts and carrying non-resupinate flowers.
I have only found these orchids on very steep banks of roadcuts and banks of artificial lakes, usually quite unacessable without moving with great care to not slip down the bank as they seem to prefer the middle of the steep incline so hard to get up to them or even harder to get down to them.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Venezuelan Orchids Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1965 as E duckei drawing fide; Flora de Venezuela Volumen XV Parte 1 Foldats 1969 Foldats; Flora of Ecuador No 9 225[1] Garay 1978 drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 1 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 5 COS 1994 photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 475 Bennett & Christenson 1998 as E duckei Drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 1 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 2 Dodson 2001 drawing/photo fide; Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003; An Illustrated Field Guide to the Orchids of the Yotoco Forest Reserve Colombia Kolanowska, Escobar, Sanchez & Szlachetko 2011 drawing/photo ok; Orchids of the Department of Valle de Cauca Vol 1 Kolanowska and Szachetko 2012 drawing fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 85 #10 2016 photo fide; Orquideas Tesoro de Colombia Ortiz/Uribe 2017 photo/drawing good;
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