Stelis glossula Rchb.f. 1870 SECTION Humboldtia

Photos by © Bogarin, Used under permission of Epidendra Website CR

Drawing

Drawing by © Carl Luer

EARLY

Common Name The Tongue-Like Stelis [probably refers to the elongate dorsal sepal]

Flower Size 1/4" [6.5 mm]

This ID is fairly certain.

Found in Atlantida department of Honduras, Zelaya department of Nicaragua, Puntarenas province of Costa Rica, Chiriqui province of Panama and Esmeraldas provincve of coastal Ecuador in scrub forests on small branches at elevations of 40 to 450 meters as a mini-miniature sized, hot growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with short, erct ramicauls enveloped by 1 to 2 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptic-oblong, subobtuse, tridenticulate apically, attenuate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms winter, spring and early summer on an erect, much longer than the leaf, to 3.6" [to 9 cm] long, racemose, distichous, densely many flowered inflorescence with adpressed, infundibular, obtuse, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying the yellow and brown flowers in the upper third of the inflorescence.

"The plant is densely caespitose with thickly coriaceous leaves with abbreviated ramicauls completely enveloped by a loose sheath. The slender inflorescence far exceeds the leaves. In a congested raceme much shorter than the peduncle, the tiny flowers are borne transversely and ovarlapping in two opposite ranks. The oblong dorsal sepal is twice as long as the transversely obovate synsepal. The flabellate, single veined petals are not remarkable except that their width is thrice the length of the width of the lip. The nearly microscopic lip is thickly subquadrate with a concave glenion on the anterior face above the thickened, minutely apiculate margin. The stigmatic lobes of the column are small and inconspicuous behind the anther cap." Luer 2009

Synonyms Apatostelis glossula (Rchb.f.) Garay 1979; Stelis inaequalis Ames 1923

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Gard. Chron. 1870: 1373 Rchb.f 1870;

Schedul. Orchid. 4: 12 Ames 1923 as Stelis inaequalis;

The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946 as S inaequalis

The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946 as S inaequalis drawing fide;

Bot. Mus. Leafl. 27: 188 Garay 1979 as Apotostelis glossula;

Selbyana Vol 10 Orchids of Central America Hamer 1988 as Apatostelis glossula drawing fide;

Selbyana Vol 10 Orchids of Central America Hamer 1988 as Apatostelis inaequalis drawing fide;

Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;

Native Ecuadorian Orchid Vol 5 Dodson 2004 maybe;

Orquideas de la Serrania del Baudo Misas Urreta 2005 as Stelis grossula drawing/photo fide;

Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing good;

Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 as S inaequalis drawing good;

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador Part IV Luer 2009

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador Part IV Luer 2009 drawing fide;

Orquideologia Vol 27 #2 2010 photo fide;

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