Encholirium longiflorum is one of the few species that was not observed in their natural habitat during the development of this work. It has floral characters that makes it quite different from other species of the genus. Their flowers have very long pedicels(2,7-5,2 cm long) and petals also well developed (2,2-3,8 cm long) which make the flowers of this taxon the largest in the genus (Fig. 59 - C & D). This peculiarity is the reason for the chosen epithet by the author of the species (longiflorum " = long flowers, Leme (1995)). The very reduced floral bracts, in contrast with the long pedicels, also is an outstanding characteristic of E. longiflorum (Fig. 59 - D)
Probably, E. longiflorum occurs very near to places of some populations of E. luxor, with which it can be confused when you only examine vegetative characters. However, when in flower or fruit these taxa are easily differentiated by the length of the pedicels.
An important factor is that herbarium collections of species of the genus Encholirium, are constituted, in the great majority, just of fragments of the specimens. Likewise, as up to this moment, it was not possible to observe E. longiflorum in its habitat, and the description of it still lacks some information.
Geographical distribution, habitat and phenology: The few collections deposited in the herbaria show that Encholirium longiflorum occurs in the north of Minas Gerais to the west of Bahia, in limestone Flora, in the domains of the cerrado or in the transition between this and the caatinga (Fig. 25). —SeeForzza 2001
