Epidendrum sertorum Garay & Dunst. 1972 GROUP Difforme

Drawing by © Dunsterville & Garay and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Common Name The Wreath Bearing Epidendrum [refers to the subumbellate inflorescence]

Flower Size 1.4" [3.5 cm]

Found in Venezuela and Colombia in wet rainforests at elevations around 100 to 800 meters as a small sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with erect to suberect, leafy stems carrying unequal, light green, shiny, softly fleshy, oblong-elliptic, apically bilobed, basally clasping leaves that blooms in the summer on a terminal, sessile, subumbellate, several flowered inflorescence.

"E. sertorum from upper Orinoco in Venezuela and east of Colombia, belongs to the GROUP Difforme which is characterized by the caespitose, sympodial plants, fleshy, pale green to glaucous leaves, apical inflorescence, sessile, rarely with a short peduncle, one-flowered to corymbose, without spathaceous bracts, fleshy, green to yellowish-green rarely white flowers. The new species is recognized by the lateraly compressed stems, 4 to 6, elliptic leaves, stright column with clinandrium hood shorter and dentate. It is similar to Epidendrum macarense which has ancipitose stems, ovate-elliptic leaves, lip entire, subtruncate, widely obtuse, disc with several prominent veins, arcuate column and a prominent, subquadrate clinandrium hood." Adapted from E macarense Icones 7 Plate 757 Hagsater etal 2004

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI *Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 5 Dunsterville & Garay 1972 drawing fide; Bot Notiser 130 Lojtnant 1977; Icones Orchidacearum 4 Plate 434 Hagsater 2001 see recognition section; Orchids of Venezuela, an Illustrated Field Guide Vol 1 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 1 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Orquideas Nativas del Tachira Fernandez 2003 photo good; Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003; Icones Orchidacearum 7 Plate 757 Hagsater & Sanchez 2004 see recognition section and latin diagnosis; Icones Orchidacearum Vol 8 Plate 826 Hagsater & Sanchez 2006 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 12 Plate 1208 Hagsater 2009 see recognition section; Orquideas, Tesoro de Colombia Vol 2 Ortiz & Uribe 2017 drawing good;

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