Encyclia
noun
Herbs, epiphytic. Roots fleshy, glabrous. Stems aggregate, erect, forming ovoid-pyriform pseudobulbs. Leaves apical, sessile, articulate; blade linear-elliptic, leathery. Inflorescences apical, racemes to panicles, flowering only once; spathe absent. Flowers resupinate, pedicellate, simultaneous; sepals subequal; petals similar; lip appressed to column, adnate only at base, callus boat-shaped; pollinia 4, obovoid, laterally compressed, subequal; caudicles 4 in 2 pairs; column winged; rostellum semiorbiculate, entire, abaxially covered with viscous substance. Fruits capsules, ellipsoid, 3-ribbed, 1-locular. Species over 750: neotropical. Stems of the encyclias are variable outside the flora area: rarely they are canelike and do not form pseudobulbs; leaves are sometimes semiterete. The genus has been misrepresented as epidendrums having pseudobulbs (O. Ames et al. 1936), as most of them do; some epidendrums also do. The Florida species were segregated by J. K. Small (1933) into four genera: Encyclia, Hormidium, Anacheilium, and Epicladium. Most later authors recognized only Epidendrum or Epidendrum and Encyclia. Recent attempts for the reestablishment of Anacheilium and Hormidium (G. F. Pabst et al. 1981; R. P. Sauleda et al. 1984) were based mainly on Brazilian species and did not take Mexican species into consideration. Prosthechea has been recently recognized (W. E. Higgins 1997[1998]), thus leaving only one species of Encyclia in the flora area.