Stelis chamaestelis (Rchb.f.) Garay & Dunst. 1966 SECTION Stelis
Drawing by © Dunsterville
Common Name The Low, Short Column Stelis
Flower Size .12” [3 mm]
Found in northwestern Venezuela in cloud forests at elevations around 2500 to 2600 meters as a small sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 close, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, linear-elliptical, obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms on 1 to 3, erect, thin, almost filiform, distichous, 8” [20 cm] long including the .8” [2 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe from a node below the apex of the ramicaul with tubular, obtuse, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"Lindley transferred Reichenbach’s Pleurothallis chamaestilis to Stelis with another name (florea), because he believed that the plant was “neither dwarf, nor a Pleurothallis.” Actually, Pleurothallis might have been inadvertently printed instead of Stelis. The habit is densely ascending or repent with caespitose components along a thick rhizome with erect, slender ramicauls with narrowly elliptical leaves that are far exceeded by two to eight erect, slender racemes of tiny flowers with three-veined sepals and single-veined petals. The minute lip is rounded and concave below a broad, thick bar." Luer 2018
Synonyms Apatostelis chamaestelis (Rchb.f.) Garay 1979; *Pleurothallis chamaestelis Rchb.f. 1850; Stelis florea Lindl. 1859
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Linnaea 22: 825 Rchb.f 1850;
Fol. Orchid. 8: 5 Lindley 1859 as S florea;
*Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 4 Dunsterville And Garay 1966 drawing fide;
Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 2 1970 drawing fide;
Bot. Mus. Leafl. 27: 187 Garay 1979 as Apotostelis chamaestelis;
Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing fide;
Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide;
Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing fide;
Harvard Pap. Bot. 23: 23 Luer & Escobar 2018 Drawing fide
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