Epidendrum cyclolobum Hágsater & E.Santiago GROUP Oerstedella SUBGROUP Aberrans

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

EARLY

Common Name or Meaning The Circular Lobe Epidendrum [refers to the shape of the mid lobe of the lip

Flower Size .6" [1.5 cm]

Found in Nicaragua in cloud forests at elevations around 1500 meters as a small to medium sized, cool growing epiphyte with simple, cane-like, terete, thin, straight, produces keikis in the apical 1/3 of old stems carrying 5 to 7, distributed all along the stem, alternate, articulate, suberect, grass-like, generally deciduous below, linear-lanceolate, acute leaves that blooms in the early winter on a terminal, occuring only once, racemose, short, subsessile, erect, simultaneously 2 flowered inflorescence without a spathe but has much shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying resupinate, pink flowers.

"Epidendrum cyclolobum belongs to the GROUP Oerstedella which is characterized by the sympodial habit, mostly verrucose stems, and the rostellum which is perpendicular to the axis of the column instead of parallel, forming a wide, open sinus, and without a viscidium, and the SUBGROUP Aberrans, which has small, membranaceous flowers with a prominent clinandrium-hood, with unequal, bird-wing type pollinia, the inner pair much smaller than the outer pair, and the pollinia very flat and translucent. The species is recognized by the thin stems, grass-like, suberect, narrow leaves, erect, subsessile, racemose inflorescence with a few pink flowers, sepals .28 to .32" [7 to 8 mm] long, the 3-lobed lip with the lateral lobes triangular, rounded and the midlobe orbicular. Epidendrum centropetalum Rchb.f. is vegetatively very similar, but the flowers are slightly larger, sepals .36 to .4" [9 to 10 mm] long, the lateral lobes of the lip are smaller, narrowly triangular, acute, and the midlobe is wide and an inverted "V" shaped, with a wide, deep, apical sinus. Epidendrum pansamalae Schltr. has still larger flowers with the sepals .52 to .56" [13 to 14 mm] long, densely-flowered inflorescences, the lateral lobes of the lip oblong and the midlobe flabellate." Hagsater etal

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Orchidacearum 8 Plate 817 Hagsater and Sanchez 2006 see recognition section; * Icones Orchidaceaeum 8 Plate 825 Hagsater & Sanchez 2006 drawing fide;

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