Epidendrum avicula Lindley 1841 GROUP Lanium
Plant in situ - La Caraça, Minas Gerais, Brazil elevation 1200 meters
Photos by © Jay Pfahl.
Photos by © Amerigo Docha Neto.
and 
Common Name The Little Bird Epidendrum
Flower Size 1/4" [7.5mm]
Found in the Amazonas of Brazil, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador as a miniature sized, creeping, warm to cool growing epiphytic plant with thickened stems enveloped by distichous imbricating sheaths, with the uppermost one or two bearing, 2 to 3 oblong-elliptic, acute leaves that clasp basally and is found in wet montane forests around 500 to 1800 meters in elevation needing shade and water while growing and higher light and less water after blooming which occurs in the spring and the fall arising with a new growth on a apical, short to 6" [6 to 12 cm], tomentose, racemose inflorescence with several to many, spreading flowers.
Best grown on a raft of tree fern to accomodate the rambling growth habit, given hot to cool temperatures, bright indirect light and year round water.
"E. avicula (Benth.) Lindley belongs to the GROUP Lanium which is characterized by the rhizomatose plants, the stems cane-like to pseudobulbous, leaves generally aggregate towards the apex, flowers non-resupinate, more or less pubescent, pollinia 2 or 4. The species is recognized by the wide, laminar leaves, small flowers, star-shaped, segments acuminate, ovary and dorsal surface of the sepals mostly pubescent, lip with the basal half transversely elliptic, the apical half triangular, acuminate. It is closely related Epidendrum stangeanum which has somewhat repent plants with one or two apical, semi-terete, fleshy leaves on a thin fusiform pseudobulb, the racemose inflorescence shorter than the long leaf, flower small, star-shaped, segments acuminate, ovary and dorsal surface of the sepals mostly pubescent, lip with the basal half transversely elliptic, the apical half triangular, acuminate. E. stiliferum Dressler, which has thicker pseudobulbs, a paniculate, pubescent infloresence about as long as the leaves, and the sepals .12" [3 mm] long." Adapted from E stangeanum Plate 1389 Hagsater etal 2010
Synonyms Epidendrum longifolium Lehmann 1908; Lanium avicula (Lindl.) Benth. 1881; Lanium avicula var longifolium Cogn. 1898; Lanium avicula var. subteretifolia Hoehne 1912; Lanium ecuadorense Schltr. 1921
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Refugium Botanicum Reichenbach 1872 drawing fide; Xenia Orchidaceae Vol 3 Reichenbach 1892 drawing fide; Die Orchideen Schlechter 1915; Die Orchideen der Sudamerikanischen Kordillerenstaaten III Ecuador Schlechter 1921 as L ecuadorense; Iconografia de Orchidaceae Do Brasil Hoehne 1949 drawing fide; Orchids of Peru Vol 2 Schweinfurth 1959 as Lanium avicula; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965 as Lanium avicula drawing fide; Fieldiana Biology, Vol 33, 1st Supple. to the Orchids of Peru Scweinfurth 1970 as Epidendrum lanioides;Orchidaceae Brasilense Band 1 Pabst & Dungs 1975 as Lanium avicula drawing fide; Die Orchideen 3 Auflage Bd 1 Sonderabdruck aus Schlechter Lieferung 9 513 - 576 Brieger, Maatsch and Senghas 1977 as Lanium avicula photo fide; Die Orchideen 3 Auflage Bd 1 Sonderabdruck aus Schlechter Lieferung 9 513 - 576 Brieger, Maatsch and Senghas 1977 as L ecuadorense; Cattleyas and Their Relatives Withner Vol 3 1990 as Lanium avicula photo fide; The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Orchids Pridgeon 1992 photo fide; The Manual Of Cultivated Orchid Species Bechtel, Cribb & Launert 1992 as Lanium avicula photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 239 Bennett & Christenson 1995 as drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 640 Bennett & Christenson 2001 as Epi lanioides drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 2 Dodson 2001 fide; Machu Picchu Orchids Christenson 2003; Orchids of Bolivia Vol 2 Laelinae Vasquez and Ibisch 2004 photo fide; The Organ Mountain Range Its History and its Orchids Miller, Warren, Miller & Seehawer 2008 drawing/photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum 13 Plate 1389 Hagsater & Santiago 2010 See recognition section; Las Orquideas del Peru Izerskyy & Bezverhov 2011 as E lanoides photo fide; Orchidees du Bresil As Orquideas da Serra Do Castello Vol 3 Chiron & Bolsanello 2013 Drawing/photo fide; Miniature Orchids, A Compendium Parsons and Gerritson 2013 photo fide; Icones Orchidacearum 14 Plate 1439 Hagsater & Santiago 2013 See recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 17(1) Plate 1752 Hagsater & Jimenez 2019 see recognition section;
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