IOSPE PHOTOS

Stelis chihobensis Ames 1922 SECTION Stelis

Drawing by © Fritz Hamer

Common Name The Chihob Stelis [A town in Guatemala]

Flower Size .12” [3 mm]

Found in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Costa Rica at elevations around 500 to 1000 meters as a miniature sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 or so loose, inflated tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, linear-elliptic, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on 2 erect, flexuous, distichous, 4.4” [11 cm] long including the .2” [5 mm] long peduncle, simultaenolusly several, many flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe below the apex of the ramicaul and has tubular, acute floral bracts.

"S. chihobensis is a species with a lip similar to S. amoena, but is distinguished by the ramicauls shorter than the leaf, the blades narrower .2 to .36" [5 to 9 mm] wide, the glabrous sepals and the lobes of the stigma less divergent. Vegetatively it is the dame as S. guatemalensis, but has the dorsal sepal longer than the laterals which are completely adherent to their apices. The lip is prominently apiculate and the column with the stigamtic lobes are very divergent." Solano 1993

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Schedul. Orchid. 1: 3 Ames 1922

Orchids of Guatemala Ames Correll pg 158 1952 drawing fide;

Orchids of Guatemala Ames Correll pg 157 1952 as S bidentata drawing fide;

Icones Plantarum Tropicarum Plate 1275 Hamer 1985 drawing fide;

ORQUIDEA (MEX.) 13(1- 2) Solano and Soto Arenas . DICIEMBRE 1993 drawing fide;

Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing good;

Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018

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