Epidendrum leucochilum

Epidendrum leucochilum.

"Common Name The White Flowered Epidendrum

Flower Size 4" [10 cm]

Found in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru in wet montane forests at elevations of 1000 to 3100 meters as a large sized, caespitose, warm to cool growing, terrestrial, lithophyte or epiphyte with erect, leafy reed-stems carrying elliptic, emarginate, coriaceous, gradually becoming conduplicate below leaves that blooms in nature in the fall, winter or spring on lateral to pendant, terminal, racemose, 16" [40 cm] long, cylindric inflorescence arising on a mature stem from a large, compressed spathe that completely envelops the peduncle and carries minute floral bracts and numerous, spidery, fragrant flowers.

Recent research has shown that the name E longiflorum long associated with this species was used previously for an Indian species in 1791 by Koenig so according to Nomenclature rules this name becomes invalid and so E leucochilum takes precedence."

From: [link]

Place: José Celestino Mutis Botanical Garden of Bogotá, Colombia
Camera: Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ2

Fun Fact: most plants in tropical lands have greasy leafs, due to the rainy and humid weather, that greasy layer keeps the water off the leafs , preventing fungal infections and leading the water to the ground where is later absorved by the roots.