Stelis elongata Kunth 1816 SECTION Humboldtia
photo by © Francisco Tobar and his Flickr Ecuador Orchid Photo Website
Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Elongated Stelis [refers to the habit]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia at elevations around 1700 to 3000 meters as a miniature sized, cool to cold growing, scandent, long repent epiphyte with ascending ramicaul carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, long, narrowly oblong, obtuse to acute, tridenticulate, narrowing and cuneate below into the short petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on an erect, slender, longer than the leaf, to 6.8" [17 cm] long, secund, densely, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with oblique acute, as long as the pedicel to as long as the ovary floral bracts.
"This slender, long-scandent species is variable, relatively frequent and widely distributed in the Andes from Colombia into central Bolivia. It is characterized by a stout, ascending, creeping rhizome and ascending, erect ramicauls about as long as the long, slender leaves that are surpassed by a slender, many-flowered raceme. The erect dorsal sepal is longer than the lateral sepals that are variously connate and held forward as a synsepal. The petals are flabellate and thickened; the lip is one millimeter long and three lobed; the lateral lobes are small and basal while the anterior lobe is narrowly triangular." Luer 2009
Synonyms Stelis lobata Rchb.f. 1855; Stelis melicoides Schltr. 1921
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Nov. Gen. Sp. 1: 363 HBK 1816; Bonplandia (Hannover) 3: 241 Rchb.f 1855 as S lobata; Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. Beih. 9: 66 Schlechter 1921 as S mellicoides;
Orchids of Peru Vol 1 Schweinfurth 1958 as S lobata;
Orchids of Peru Vol 1 Schweinfurth 1958 as S mellicoides; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 2 1970 as S lobata drawing fide; Fieldiana Botany Vol 33 1st Supplement to the Orchids of Peru Schweinfurth 1970; Fieldiana Botany Vol 33 1st Supplement to the Orchids of Peru Schweinfurth 1970 as S mellicoides; Orquideas de Bolivia Vol 1 Vasquez & Ibisch 2000; Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing good; Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 as S melicoides; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador part IV Luer 2009 Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador part IV Luer 2009 drawing fide; Selbyana 32(1,2): 42 Luer & Vasquez 2018 Selbyana 32(1,2): 137 Luer & Vasquez 2018 Drawing fide
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