Stelis aemula Schltr. 1918 SUBGENUS Stellata SECTION Disticha purpurescens alliance Duque 2008
TYPE Photo by © Fritz Hamer/TYPE Drawing by © R Solano and The Herbario AMO Website
Photo courtesy of Dmitry Demin
Drawing by Fritz Hamer
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EARLY 
Common Name The Similar Looking Stelis
Flower Size .15" [4.5mm]
Found in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama and Ecuador at elevations around 500 to 1600 meters meters as a small sized, hot to cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, elongate ramicauls enveloped basally by several, close, tubular, acuminate sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptic, round and retuse apically, gradually narrows below into a short, conduplicate, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late spring and early summer on an erect, 8" [20 cm] long, many flowered, racemose inflorescence that is longer than the leaf and has small, shorter than the ovary floral bracts.
"S . perplexa is similar to S. gracilis y S. veracrucensis but distinguished from S gracilis by the shorter peduncle .6 to .8" [1.5 to 2 cm] long, the inflorescence almost as long as the leaf, the uppermost sheath of the ramicaul covers up to the spathe and part of the petiolae of the leaf, the revolute margins of the sepals and the fan-shaped petals that are attenuate to the base, the subrhombic lip attenuate to the base. It differs from S . veracrucensis in the shorter peduncle with an infundibuliform bract, the floral bracts are bigger and apiculate and the much larger flowers with the sepals sometimes minutely pilose on the adaxial side." Solano 1993
Synonyms Stelis perplexa Ames 1922; Stelis sarcodantha Schltr. 1918
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
*Beih. Bot. Centralbl. 36(2): 385 Schlechter 1918;
Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 19: 170. Costa Rica Schlechter 1923;
The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946;
Orchids of Guatemala Ames Correll 1952 as S perplexa;
Las Orquideas de El Salvador Vol 2 Hamer 1974 as S perplexa drawing/photo good;
Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 325 Dodson 1980 drawing ok;
Las Orquideas de El Salvador Vol 3 Hamer 1981 drawing ok;
Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 1271 Dodson 1985 drawing fide to drawing;
Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 1286 Dodson 1985 as Stelis perplexa drawing ok;
ORQUIDEA (MEX.) 13(1- 2):83 Solano and Soto Arenas . DICIEMBRE 1993 as S perplexa drawing/photo fide;
Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;
Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz, Compendium Duque 2008 NOT SURE;
Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz, A Compendium Duque 2008 as S perplexa drawing ok;
Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018;
Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018 as S perplexa
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