Epidendrum

• Authority

  Ackerman, James D. 1995. An orchid flora of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 73: 1-203.

• Family

  Orchidaceae

• Scientific Name

  Epidendrum L.

• Description

  
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  Genus Description - Plants sympodial epiphytes, lithophytes or terrestrials. Roots velamentous. Stems slender and sometimes branched, or pseudobulbous from a creeping rhizome. Leaves articulate, 1 to many, distichous, conduplicate. Inflorescences lateral or more commonly terminal, single-flowered or in racemes, panicles, or subumbels. Flowers variously colored, frequently green. Lip usually adnate to the length of the column, simple or lobed, smooth to callose. Column with an entire stigma; rostellum slitlike and oriented to the axis of the column; anther terminal, operculate, incumbent; pollinia 4 or rarely 2, laterally compressed, hard, waxy. Fruit a capsule.

• Discussion

  Epidendrum Linnaeus, Sp. PL 952. 1753. Type species (conserved). Epidendrum nocturnum Jacquin, widespread throughout the American tropics and subtropics. A neotropical genus of several hundred species. The generic name refers to plants that grow upon trees, epiphytes, which is the habit of most Epidendrum. Special Literature. O. Ames et al., 1936; Garay & Sweet, 1974; Dressier, 1984.