Epidendrum blepharistes

Epidendrum blepharistes
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Monocots
Order: Asparagales
Family: Orchidaceae
Subfamily: Epidendroideae
Tribe: Epidendreae
Subtribe: Laeliinae
Genus: Epidendrum
Subgenus: E. subg. Amphiglottium
Section: E. sect. Polycladia
Species: E. blepharistes
Binomial name
Epidendrum blepharistes
Barker ex Lindl. (1844)
Synonyms
  • Epidendrum funkii Rchb.f. (1850)
  • Epidendrum brachycladium Lindl. (1853)
  • Epidendrum brachycladium var. crassipes Lindl. (1853)
  • Epidendrum crassipes (Lindl.) Kraenzl. (1916)
  • Epidendrum pachypodum Schltr. (1920)
  • Epidendrum dolabrilobum Ames & C. Schweinf. (1925)

Epidendrum blepharistes is a species of orchid in the genus Epidendrum native to Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.[1]

Description

Epidendrum blepharistes grows both terrestrially and epiiphytically at altitudes ranging from 1.0 km to 3.0 km in the Neotropics.[2] Like other members of the subgenus E. subg. Amphiglottium, E. blepharistes exhibits a sympodial growth habit, with individual stems covered from the base with close, tubular sheaths; on the upper part of the stem, these sheaths are the bases of the distichous leaves. E. blepharistes differs from most members of E. subg. Amphiglottium by frequently having a fusiform swelling, up to 1.5 dm long, at the base of each stem. The elongate, ovate, obtuse leaves[3] can grow more than 22 cm long by 3 cm wide. The terminal peduncle is covered from its base in close tubular sheaths, and carries either a loose panicle (typical of the section E. sect. Polycladia) consisting of rather few distant racemes, or a single raceme. The small flowers are a rich rose color with oval sepals up to 10 mm long by 4 mm wide, acuminate petals nearly the same length as the sepals but with a denticulate margin, and a quadrilobate lip which is adnate to the column to its apex. (Schweinfurth 1959 describes the lip as "deeply 3-lobed" and then describes the mid-lobe as "deeply bilobed at the apex".) The lateral lobes of the lip are more or less fringed. There are two calli where the lip diverges from the column, and a keel between them, running part way down the medial lobe of the lip.

The diploid chromosome number of E. blepharistes has been determined as 2n = 40.[4]

References

  1. ↑ http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/namedetail.do?accepted_id=67918&repSynonym_id=-9998&name_id=67918&status=true
  2. ↑ Schweinfurth. "Orchids of Peru" Fieldiana: Botany 30(1959)446—7. Field Museum, Chicago, IL. as Epidendrum funkii
  3. ↑ H. G. Reichenbach, "Orchides", nr. 236 in C. Müller, Ed. Walpers Annales Botanices Systematicae 6(1861)411. Berlin.
  4. ↑ page 251 of Leonardo P. Felix and Marcelo Guerra: "Variation in chromosome number and the basic number of subfamily Epidendroideae (Orchidaceae)" Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 163(2010)234-278. The Linnean Society of London. downloaded October 2010 from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1095-8339.2010.01059.x/pdf

External links

External identifiers for Epidendrum blepharistes
Encyclopedia of Life 1097460
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