Stelis cupuligera Rchb.f. & Warsz. 1854 SECTION Stelis
Photos by © S Manning
Drawing Original Drawing by © Padre Pedro Ortiz Conserved at the Herbario de la Universidad Javeriana, Bogota Colombia
Common Name The Cupped Stelis [refers to the floral bracts and flowers]
Flower Size .3" [8 mm]
Found in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru at elevations around 2000 meters as a small to just medium sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphtye or lithophyte with an erect, stout ramicaul enveloped by 2 basal sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, elliptic-oblong, coriaceous, main vein sulcate, subacute and tridenticulate apically, tapering below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms on 1 to 2, erect, 10.8" [to 27 cm] long, racemose, subdistichous, laxly many flowered inflorescence arising through a conduplicate spathe and has cupulate, triangular, infundibular, acute floral bracts.
CAUTION I am not positive with this photo determination so please use with caution.
Many references put this species as a synonym of S purpurea
Synonyms Stelis densiflora Lindl.1859
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Bonplandia (Hannover) 2: 114 Rchb.f Warsz. 1854; Fol. Orchid. 8: 16 Lindley 1859 as S densiflora; Orchids of Peru Vol 1 Schweinfurth 1958; Orchids of Peru Vol 1 Schweinfurth 1958 as S densiflora; Fieldiana Botany Vol 33 1st Supplement to the Orchids of Peru Schweinfurth 1970; Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 5 Dunsterville & Garay 1972 not = S aviceps; Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing not = S aviceps; Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz Duque 2008 drawing ok
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
