Epidendrum timbiquiense Hágsater & E.Santiago 2013 GROUP Albertii SUBGROUP Allenii

TYPE Drawing by © Jimenez and The AMO Herbaria Website

Common Name The Timbiqui River Epidendrum

Flower Size 1.2" [3 cm]

Found in in Cauca and Valle de Cauca departments of Colombia in the Pacific lowlands in transitional lands between tropical wet and pluvial forests at elevations around 50 meters as a small to medium sized, hot growing epiphyte with simple, cane-like, basally terete, laterally compressed and ancipitous above erect, straight stems carrrying 5, all along the apical half of the stem, alternate, articulate, sub-erect, unequal in size, basal ones smaller, narrowly elliptic, acuminate, margin entire leaves that blooms in the winter but could bloom at any time of the year on a terminal, pluri-racemose, arising through an ovate, rounded apically, conduplicate spathe, peduncle 4 to 11.6" [10 to 29 cm] long, erect, straight, ancipitous, two-winged, wings progressively narrower towards the apex, rachis .8 to 2" [2 to 5 cm] long, terete, slightly zig-zag, nearly totally enveloped by the floral bracts, 6 to 13.6" [15 to 34 cm] long, overall, successively single, many flowered inflorescence with much shorter than the ovary, ovate, rounded, conduplicate, partly imbricating, slightly oblique, persistent on the rachis even after flowering floral bracts and carrying resupinate, white flowers with no fragrance data.

"Epidendrum timbiquiense belongs to the GROUP Albertii which is characterized by the sympodial habit, laterally compressed to ancipitose or somewhat fusiform-thickened stems, the apical or apical and lateral racemose, distichous inflorescence more or less with imbricating bracts on the peduncle, producing one flower at a time, and the SUBGROUP Allenii which is characterized by the stems with numerous leaves, the apical, rarely lateral inflorescence, peduncle elongate, bare, non-bract bearing, two-winged, the rachis short, covered by rounded, usually imbricating, bracts. The species is recognized, by the white flowers, sepals .52" [13 mm] long, very small, mostly not imbricating floral bracts .08 to .16" [2 to 4 mm] long, the rounded lip, cordate at the base, and the entire, reduced, clinandrium-hood. Epidendrum grayumii Hágsater & E. Santiago has greenish white flowers somewhat tinged with purple, .4 to .52" [10 to 13 mm] long floral bracts, the lip elliptic, with the base cuneate and the clinandrium-hood prominent. Epidendrum allenii L.O. Wms. has prominent floral bracts .24 to .4" [6 to 10 mm] long, the margin of the sepals revolute, and the lip obscurely 3-lobed, with a prominent clinandrium hood. Epidendrum nora-mesae Hágsater & O. Pérez has greenish brown flowers, (most often they are yellow whereas in the canopy in bright sunlight they become white, sepals .52 to .84" [14 to 21 mm] long, and the lip 3-lobed, and 8 pollinia." Hagsater 2013

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Orchidacearum 14 Plate 1489 Hagsater & Dodson 2013 drawing fide; Orchids of the Department of Valle de Cauca Colombia Vol 2 Kolanowska, Hagsater, Ayala and Saldana 2014 drawing fide; Orquideas, Tesoro de Colombia Vol 2 Ortiz & Uribe 2017 photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum 16[1} Plate 1665 Hagsater & Sanchez 2018 see recognition section;

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