Stelis comica O.Duque 1997 SECTION Stelis
TYPE Photo/Drawing by © Oscar Duque and The Epidendra Website
Common Name The Comic Stelis [refers to the side view of the central apparatus which appears to be a jester in profile]
Flower Size .12” [3 mm]
Found in Antioquia department of Colombia in cloud forests at elevations of 2100 to 2300 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3, brown, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute, tridenticulate, narrowly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on slender, erect to slightly arching, disitchous, subflexuous, loosely, 2” [5 cm] long including the peduncle, many flowered inflorescence with thin, close, shorter than the ovary floral bracts.
"Can be recognized by its very small size with matted narrow leaves, very small flowers and a long rostellum that contributes to the comic appearance of the flowers." Oscar Duque 2008
"This very small, densely caespitose species is distinguished by a laxly multiflowered raceme that surpasses a narrow leaf; ovate, widely spread, three-veined sepals; single-veined petals with thickened margin; and a type A lip with the apex obtuse, and a cleft bar with a glenion. The stigmatic lobes are within the clinandrium and are adjacent, perhaps even confluent, beneath the rostellum. Duque found Stelis comica to be “common” in that part of the Central Cordillera, but it has not yet been identified elsewhere. His name comica refers to what he sees in a “buffoon-like appearance of the flower when seen from the side,” something I have not been able to visualize. Luer 2018
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
*Orquideología Vol 20 #3 pg 338–339 Duque 1997 drawing/photo fide;
Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing fide;
Harvard Pap. Bot. 23: 26 Luer & Escobar 2018 Drawing fide
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