Stelis cochlearis Garay 1956 SECTION Stelis
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
TYPE Drawing by © Leslie Garay
Drawing by © Oscar Duque
LATER 
Common Name The Eared Stelis [refers to the location of the orchid]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Antioquia, Tolima and Putumayo departments of Colombia at elevations around 2000 to 2700 meters as a small sized, cold growing, ascending, autogamous epiphyte with erect, terete ramicauls carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, erect, obovate-ligulate, acute, attenuate below into the base leaf leaves that blooms in the later summer on an erect, arising through a spathe, longer than the leaf, peduncle 1" [2.5 cm] long, rachis 4.8 to 5.8" [12 to 14 cm] long, distichus, slightly flexuous, densely many flowered inflorescence with navicular, acuminate, distichous, longer than the ovary floral bracts.
"This variable species is remarkable for thick, caespitose ramicauls and narrowly linear, succulent leaves that are surpassed by one or two, many-flowered racemes with large, conspicuous floral bracts, the flowers protruding from the margins. The sepals are fleshy, obtuse, 3-veined and connate to near the middle to form a cup for the central apparatus, and more or less spreading above the middle. The petals are thin and 3-veined. The lip is deeply concave below a thin, broadly cleft bar. The flowers of the plant described as Stelis cochlearis were probably in very poor condition, because the published description and illustration are misleading, which led to its being redescribed more than once." Luer 2018
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
*Canad. J. Bot. 34: 352 Garay 1956 Drawing fide;
Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing fide;
Harvard Pap. Bot. 23: 144 Luer & Escobar 2018 drawing fide
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