Stelis aviceps Lindl. 1858 SECTION Humboldtia
Photo by © Alexander Hirtz
Photos by © Duane McDowell and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Bird Head Stelis [refers to the shape of the closed flower]
Flower Size .1" [2.5mm]
Found in Venezuela, Narino department of colombia, Pichincha, Napo, Pastaza, Tungurahua, Morona-Santiago and Zamora-Chinchipe provinces of Ecuador, Cajamarca and Junin departments of Peru and Bolivia in low elevation cloud forests at elevations of 400 to 2800 meters as a small to medium sized, hot to cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with a 3" [7.5 cm] long, stem enveloped basally by 2 to 3, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, oblong to oblong-elliptic, obtuse to subacute, coriaceous, gradually narrowing below into the distinct petiolate base leaf that blooms inn the spring summer and fall on a 8" [to 20 cm] long, racemose, loosely to subdensely, several to many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, longer than the ovary
" Related to S purpurea but distinguished by the smaller habit, shorter floral bracts, samaller flowers and an obtuse dorsal sepal instead of acute. The dorsal sepal is broadly ovate, commonly 5 veined while the lateral sepals are connate into a shorter and more or less transversely ovate, concave synsepal. The petals are semi-luneate witha thick margin. The apex of the brad lip is obtusely rounded and shalloewly concave and has a low callus on the dorsum." Luer 2009
Synonyms Stelis connata C. Schweinf. 1858; Stelis cryptochila Garay 1956; Stelis polycarpa Schltr. 1929;
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Fol. Orchid. 8: 16 Lindley 1859;
Canad. J. Bot. 34: 355 Garay 1956 as S cryptochila;
Fieldiana Vol 30, The Orchids of Peru Schweinfurth 1958 as S connata
Fieldiana Vol 30, The Orchids of Peru Schweinfurth 1958 as S polycarpa;
Fieldiana Biology, Vol 33, 1st Supple. to the Orchids of Peru Schweinfurth 1970;
Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 2 1970 drawing good;
Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 5 Dunsterville & Garay 1972 as S cupiligera drawing hmm;
Orchids of Venezuela An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 as S cupiligera drawing hmm;
Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing hmm;
Orquideas de Bolivia Vol 1 Vasquez & Ibisch 2000;
Orquideas de Bolivia Vol 1 Vasquez & Ibisch 2000 as S polycarpa;
Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 photo fide;
Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz, Compendium Duque 2008 good;
Orchid Species Of Peru Zelenko & Bermudez 2009 photo fide;
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;
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