Epidendrum sigsigense Hágsater & Dodson 2008 GROUP Andean SUBGROUP Cernuum

TYPE Drawing by © Jimenez and The AMO Herbaria Website

Common Name The Sigsig Epidendrum [A town near the type locality]

Flower Size 1.2" [3 cm] wide

Found in southern Ecuador on steep road side banks east of Cuenca at elevations of 2900 to 3000 meters as a large sized, cold growing terrestrial with erect, cane-like, terete, branching above stems carrying numerous, all along the stem, distichous, subcoriaceous, elliptic, bilobed, margin crenulate leaves that blooms in the fall through winter on a terminal, from a mature stem, occuring only once, racemose, arching, nutant, peduncle terete, with an ovate-lanceolate, long acuminate bract in the middle, simultaneously 22 flowered inflorescence with shorter than the ovary, narrrowly triangular, acuminate floral bracts and carrying resupinate, fleshy, cream- colored flowers.

"Epidendrum sigsigense belongs to the GROUP Andean SUBGROUP Cernuum, characterized by the long, erect, cane-like stems with subapical branching, leaves oblong, subcoriaceous, with the apex obtuse and the 3-lobed lip and the prominent clinandrium funnel-shaped. The species is recognized by the apical lobe of the lip deeply deft so as to be dearly bilobed, without any apicule in the sinus, the lateral lobes are not oblique and the wider petals with the margin clearly erose. Epidendrum pastoense Schltr. has .4 to .52 [10 to 14 mm] long sepals, narrowly obovate petals, the midlobe of the lip ema rginate, bluntly apiculate, the flowers are very odiferous." Hagsater etal 2008

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Orchidacearum 11 plate 1178 Hagsater & Dodson 2008 Drawing fide;

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