Stelis croatii Luer 1996 SECTION Stelis

Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Website

LATE EARLY

Common Name Croat's Stelis [American Botanist at MOBOT Current]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Cartago province of Costa Rica at elevations around 1500 to 1800 meters as a miniature to small sized, cool growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath near the middle and 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the slender, long-petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on 2 to 3, arising through a spathe with an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, erect, congested, secund, 2 to 4" [5 to 10 cm] long, including the .4 to .6" [1 to 1.5 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously, many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, as long as the ovary floral bracts.

"Related to Stelis loculifera but differs in bearing several,much shorter racemes. The sepals are minutely verrucose within and a flat subquadrate lip. The stigmatic lobes are diverging instead of confluent as in S loculifera." Luer 1996

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Lindleyana 11(2): 97, f. 29 Luer 1996 drawing fide;

Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;

Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz Duque 2009 drawing fide;

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------