Epidendrum lanipes is an epiphytic sympodial orchid with spindle-shaped stems native to the montane tropical rainforest of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru at altitudes ranging from 0.8 to 1.4 km.

Epidendrum because of its rather slender, multifoliate, only slightly swollen stems, and because the terminal inflorescence has neither sheath nor spathe at its base.

[2] The flat leaves are variable: sword-shaped, tongue-shaped, narrowly elliptical, or oblong-lanceolate; they may or not be noticeably bilobed at the end.

The white flower has a wooly ovary, linear-oblong sepals, slightly longer mucronate lateral sepals, filiform to linear-oblanceolate petals, and a citrus-like scent.

The strongly trilobate lip is adnate to the column to its apex.