Excerpt From Book
As I delved among the South American species with these two characteristics — the anther cap color and the protuberances — I ran into one problem after another. I ended up with a large group of synonyms for a species that was first named Epidendrum amictum in 1855, predating all the other names and having therefore the priority of epithet for this species. Not all may agree with this choice, and some, including myself, will choose to keep some of the species of this complex as separate entities. Such species are described on other pages under Encyclia conchaechila, Enc. leucantha, and Enc. thrombodes. If we consider all these closely related forms together, the complex has a major distribution in South America, though local populations may differ in some details. Encyclia linearfoliodes continues to be a debatable synonym, and Fowlie and Duveen (1992) describe it as having an anther cap with spots that can look like eyes, a minutely notched lip, and white flowers 2 cm in diameter or less.
We can also wonder what might be different about the pollinator of these plants. Ordinarily the anther cap of an Encyclia species is white, greenish, or sometimes yellow, and dark colored types such as these deep maroon caps are unusual. Since the base of the lip tends to be covered with short, dense, almost microscopic hairs, especially on the forcipate keels, and since the midlobe is characterized as having distinctly raised and verrucose veins, the lip is also distinctive. Furthermore, the lateral lobes tend to be somewhat elongated and clasp tightly about the column.
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