Species
+

Epidendrum radicans Pav. ex Lindl.

Crucifix Orchid, Fire Star Orchid, Fire-star orchid, Ground-rooting epidendrum

Climate known 67 photographs Orchid
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Epidendrum radicans is a species of orchid native to Central America and northern South America. Common names include ground-rooting epidendrum, fire-star orchid, crucifix orchid, rainbow orchid, and reed-stem epidendrum.

Text from Wikipedia, “Epidendrum radicans”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Epidendrum

Epidendrum, abbreviated Epi in the horticultural trade, is a large neotropical genus of the orchid family. With more than 1,500 species, some authors describe it as a mega-genus. The genus name refers to its epiphytic growth habit.

Text from Wikipedia, “Epidendrum”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Orchidaceae
Described by
Pav. ex Lindl.
Native to
Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Southwest +9
Wild records
1314 in range· 652 open

At a glance

Warmest month
25°C
Apr, mean day; nights 15 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
2690mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Sep 398 mm (CHELSA)
Light
26–39DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a orchid by the genus Epidendrum, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, May to October at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (3.0 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 2690 mm a year, wettest September at 398 mm, driest March at 65 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 26 to 39 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 13 °C (archetype minimum for a orchid, above the 10.8 °C habitat night).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Epidendrum pratense Rchb.f.; Epidendrum radicans Pav.; Epidendrum radicans var. chiriquense Schltr.; Epidendrum radicans var. fuscatum Rchb.f.; Epidendrum rhizophorum Bateman ex Lindl.

Cultivation

Grouped as a orchid by the genus Epidendrum, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table supplies one figure for this group, a conventional minimum for the cold floor, and no prose.

Its year Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, May to October at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (3.0 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred.

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the year's rain (2022 mm of 2690 mm) falls in May to October. The temperature curve is flat, 3.0 °C between the warmest and coldest month, so the growing-season rule does not infer a growing season from it. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; with a flat temperature curve there is no season to reverse, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 2690 mm a year, wettest September at 398 mm, driest March at 65 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

2690 mm a year at the habitat, 2022 mm of it May to October. Wettest month September at 398 mm, driest March at 65 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1578 mm to 4493 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 26 to 39 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 26 to 39 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 22, the highest 90th-percentile month 42).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 13 °C (archetype minimum for a orchid, above the 10.8 °C habitat night).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 10.8 °C, the absolute minimum 8.4 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 25.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 13.4 °C in January (across the envelope cells 8.7 °C to 19.1 °C), warmest day 25.1 °C in April (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 13 °C. The habitat figure, the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER), is 10.8 °C; the archetype table's conventional minimum for a orchid (grouped by the genus Epidendrum, which is reliably one kind of plant) is 13 °C, which is higher, and the floor rule takes the higher.

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence, and the archetype table's group minimum where that is higher. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 62 to 71% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 22 °C in Dec to 25 °C in Apr; mean night from 13 °C in Jan to 17 °C in Jun. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 2690 mm of rain a year, most in Sep. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 574 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 8.4 °C and the 99th-percentile day 25.5 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°15°20°25°30°35°25.5° 99th-percentile day (undated)8.4° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0200400600800mm rainDLI 26–39RH 62–71 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 574 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C22 / 18–2623 / 19–2724 / 20–2925 / 20–3025 / 20–2923 / 19–2823 / 19–2823 / 19–2823 / 19–2822 / 18–2722 / 18–2622 / 18–26
Night °C13 / 9–1914 / 9–1914 / 10–2015 / 11–2116 / 12–2217 / 12–2216 / 11–2216 / 11–2216 / 11–2216 / 11–2115 / 10–2014 / 9–20
Rain mm85 / 19–19872 / 17–14765 / 18–16991 / 38–266233 / 122–525363 / 226–522340 / 190–481359 / 207–536398 / 234–625329 / 162–657220 / 63–452135 / 29–285
DLI30 / 25–3534 / 30–3838 / 34–4139 / 32–4234 / 26–4131 / 24–3632 / 24–3833 / 25–3830 / 25–3428 / 23–3226 / 22–3127 / 23–32
RH %66 / 59–7264 / 58–7062 / 58–6963 / 59–7067 / 62–7370 / 66–7669 / 64–7570 / 65–7571 / 67–7571 / 67–7670 / 64–7568 / 61–73

Each figure is the median across the 574 grid cells holding the 1247 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1603:1920 (9.825, -83.975). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 8.4 °C, 1st-percentile night 10.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 25.5 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 574 distinct grid cells holding the 1247 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1603:1920 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 10.00_-83.750, lapse-corrected +539 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1604 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeMexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia· introduced: Cuba, Puerto Rico
Kew's description“perennial or subshrub” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker10.318, -84.794 · in the densest population, 553 records (42% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1314 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 652 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker in the same place. 161 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 67 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 1314 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Epidendrum radicansEpidendrum radicansEpidendrum radicansEpidendrum radicansEpidendrum radicansEpidendrum radicansEpidendrum radicansEpidendrum radicans

Photographs: (c) Sofia Zvolanek, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Josiah Londerée, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Anders Hastings, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); no rights reserved · CC0 (3); (c) Lucas Christofides, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Epidendrum radicans, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

SHOOTLESSNESS, VELAMENTOUS ROOTS, AND THE PRE‐EMINENCE OF ORCHIDACEAE IN THE EPIPHYTIC BIOTOPE
David H. Benzing, William E. Friedman, Gretchen Peterson, A. Renfrow (1983) · American Journal of Botany
Asclepias, Lantana, and Epidendrum: A Floral Mimicry Complex?
Paulette Bierzychudek (1981) · Biotropica
Efficient production of protocorm-like bodies and plant regeneration from flower stalk explants of the sympodial orchid Epidendrum radicans
Li-Ru Chen, Jen‐Tsung Chen, Wei‐Chin Chang (2002) · In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology - Plant
Shootlessness, Velamentous Roots, and the Pre-Eminence of Orchidaceae in the Epiphytic Biotope
David H. Benzing, William E. Friedman, Gretchen Peterson, A. Renfrow (1983) · American Journal of Botany
Comparative effects of four plant growth retardants on growth ofEpidendrum radicans
Pateli Papafotiou, J. Chronopoulos (2004) · The Journal of Horticultural Science and Biotechnology
Algal associates and the evidence of cyanobacterial nitrogen fixation in the velamen roots of epiphytic orchids
A. S. Deepthi, Joseph George Ray (2020) · Global Ecology and Conservation
Effects of Floral Preservatives on the Vase Life of Orchid (Epidendrum radicans L.) Cut Flowers
Minenhle Thwala, Paul K. Wahome, T. O. Oseni, Michael T. Masarirambi (2013)
Vegetative Anatomical Adaptations Of Epidendrum Radicans (Epidendroideae, Orchidaceae) To Epiphytic Conditions Of Growth
Thangavelu Muthukumar, Shenbagam, M. (2017) · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Survival and Growth of Transplanted Orchid Seedlings Enhanced by DCPTA
J. H. Keithly, Daniel Jones, H. Yokoyama (1991) · HortScience

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Epidendrum 1 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 82 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.