Epidendrum sigmoideum Hágsater GROUP Polychlamys SUBGROUP Polychlamys

TYPE Drawing by © Jimenez, Hágsater & E.Santiago and The AMO Herbario Website

Common Name The S-Shaped Epidendrum [refers to the position of the ovary and column]

Flower Size .8" [2 cm]

Found in Costa Rica in elfin cloud forests at elevations around 1550 meters as a small sized, cool growing, repent, sympodial epiphyte with simple, cane-like, terete at the base, laterally compressed towards the apex, arising from the middle internode of the previous stem and carrying aggregate towards the apex of the stem, elliptic, obtuse, mucronate, coriaceous leaves that blooms in the spring on a terminal, erect, on a mature stem, occuring only once, racemose, distichous, peduncle with 1 to 2 basal bracts, rachis flexuous, unornamented, to .8" [2 cm] long, successively 2 to 3, 6 to 8 flowered inflorescence with ovate-elliptic, conduplicate, glumaceous, longer than the ovary, progressively shorter floral bracts and carrying short-lived, lustrous, concolor green flowers.

"Epidendrum sigmoideum is part of the GROUP Polychlamys SUBGROUP Polychlamys characterized by the successive lateral growths arising from the middle of the previous stem carrying a few leaves towards the apex and has a distichous, apical inflorescence with prominent, conduplicate, acute, glumaceous floral bracts. Easily distinguished from E barbae and others in the group by the obovate petals, the bilobed lip, with the lobes suborbicular, apically emarginate and with the rest entire, ecallose, with a raised central fleshy bump and a sigmoid ovary. Epidendrum barbae also has a spur, but the lip is apically 3-lobed, the ovary-column is straight, the flowers are yellow and the petals narrower. Epidendrum vulcanicola A. H. Heller has a straight ovary-column and a cordiform, acute lip. In E. bugabense Hágsater the ovary/column is straight, the lip obovate and apiculate. In E. cryptanthum L. O . Williams the flowers are nearly hidden by the bracts, all forming a compact cone and the lip envelops the column. The flowers of E. polychlamys are much larger and the lip is suborbicular-elliptic, without the nectary forming any prominent vesicle.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 381 Hagsater & Sanchez 1999 drawing fide; Manual de las Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Icones Orchidacearum Vol 8 Plate 839 Hagsater & Sanchez 2006 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 9 Plate 999 Hagsater 2007 see recognition section;

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