Stelis lankesteri Ames 1923 SECTION Humboldtia
Photos by © E Castro and La Selva Florula Digital Website
Original Drawing by © Padre Pedro Ortiz Conserved at the Herbario de la Universidad Javeriana, Bogota Colombia
Drawing by © O Duque
Common Name Lankester's Stelis [refers to the Mr Lankester founder of Lankester Botanical Garden in Costa Rica]
Flower Size .3" [8 mm]
Found in Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia in low hot forests at elevations of 150 to 400 meters as a small sized, hot growing, caespitose epiphtye or lithophyte with an erect, stout ramicaul enveloped by 3 inflated sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, elliptic-oblong, coriaceous, obtuse and tridenticulate apically, tapering below into the sulcate petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a solitary, arising through 1 to 2 ancipitous spathes, erect, 7.2" [to 18 cm] long, racemose, subdistichous, laxly many flowered inflorescence with infundibular, as long as the ovary floral bracts.
"Recogniazed by its stout habit with bilabiate flowers and large, triangular sepals." O Duque 2008
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Schedul. Orchid. 3: 4 Ames 1923;
Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;
Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing
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