Epidendrum acunae Dressler 1959 GROUP Ramosum SUBGROUP Mirabile
Photos by Belize Botanic Gardens © and their Belize Botanic Garden Webpage
Drawing by © Jimenez, Hágsater & E.Santiago and The AMO Herbario Website
Common Name Acuna's Epidendrum [Cuban Enginer and Orchid Enthusiast 1900's]
Flower Size 1.6" [4 cm]
Found in Florida [extinct], Cuba, Vera Cruz & Chiapas states of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama in tropical rainforests, always near water at elevations of sealevel to 1000 meters as a medium to giant sized, pendant and hot to warm growing epiphyte with an elongate, terete, sinuous, pendant, many branching, cane-like stem enveloped entirely by leaf-bearing sheaths each carrying, distichous, all along the stem, articulate, coriaceous, oblong, bilobed apically, basally clasping leaves that blooms in the spring and summer on a terminal, distichous, short, peduncle to .4" [1 cm] long, 1 to 2 flowered inflorescence arising from the tertiary branches, with 2 to 3 imbricate, conduplicate bracts
E acunae is part of the GROUP Ramosum SUBGROUP Mirabile characterized by the pendent plants, successive stems produced from a middle internode of the previous stem, without any evident main stem; the flowers white to purple and mostly very fragrant. The species is distinguished by the long, hanging, branching plants with fleshy-coriaceous leaves about 4" [10 cm] long, flowering from short branchlets; it produces usually two greenish - brown flowers back to back, the floral segments .52 to .76" [13 to 19 mm] long. It has been confused with Epidendrum paranaense Barb.Rodr. which has a many-flowered inflorescence. Epidendrum singuliflorum Schltr. has smaller leaves and flowers, and these are green or greenish-yellow. In Guatemala it has been known under the name E ramosum Jacq. var. lanceolatum Griseb. after Ames & Correll's (1952) treatment.
Synonyms Spathiger roigii Acuña 1938
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Catalogo Descriptivo de Las Orquideas Cubanas Acuna 1939 as Spathiger Roigii; The Orchids of Guatemala Ames & Correll 1952; *AOS Bulletin Vol 28 No 5 1959 drawing fide; The Native Orchids of Florida Luer 1972 Photos/drawing fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 44 #8 1975; Die Orchideen 3 Auflage Bd 1 Sonderabdruck aus Schlechter Lieferung 9 513 - 576 Brieger, Maatsch and Senghas 1977; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 808 Hamer 1982 drawing fide; Selbyana Vol 10 Orchids of Central America Hamer 1988 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 1 Plate 26 Hagsater 1990 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum 2 Plate 160 Hagsater 1993 See Recognition section; Field Guide to the Orchids of Costa Rica and Panama Dressler 1993; Icones Orchidacearum 2 Plate 176 Hagsater 1993 See Recognition Section; Icones Orchidacearum 2 Plate 179 Hagsater 1993 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 325 Hagsater 1999 see recognition section; Icones Orchidacearum 3 Plate 359 Hagsater 1999 see recognition section; Orchidaceae Antillanae Nir 2000; Orchidaceae Antillanae Nir 2000 see E blancheanum notes; Manual de las Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Orchids of Cuba Laramendi & LLamacho 2005; Orchids of Mexico Hagsater, Soto, Salazar, Jimenez, Lopez and Dressler 2005; Orchids of Mexico Hagsater 2005; Orchid Flora of the Greater Antilles Ackerman 2014; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018
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