Stelis microchila Schltr. 1911 SECTION Stelis
Photo by © Wiel Driessen
Photo by © Ron Parsons
Photo by © Daniel Jimenez
Photo by Eric Hunt, plant grown by Hanging Gardens
Drawing by R Solano
Common Name or Meaning The Small Lipped Stelis
Flower Size .1" [2.5 mm]
Found in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama and Ecuador in lower primary montane to montane rainforest to pine-oak forests at elevations of 900 to 1500 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cool gowing, caespitose epiphyte with an erect ramicaul enveloped by 2 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, oblanceolate, subacute, gradually narrowing below into the short petiolate base leaf that blooms at most any time of the year on an erect, racemose, 4" [10 cm] long, congested, distichous, secund, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with obliquely funnel-shaped, acute, just shorter than the ovary floral bracts.
"Recognized by the small habit, inflorescence 2 to 4 times as long as the leaf, a peduncle longer than the leaf and proivided with 2 to 3 tubular bracts, small flowers about .08 to .12" [2 to 3 mm] wide, bearded, the lip more or less narrowly oblong, trilobed towards the apex, the column with the lobes stipate, the short ramicauls and the narrowly oblanceoalte and spathulate." Solano 1993
Synonyms Stelis barbata Rolfe 1913; Stelis bryophila Schltr. 1923; Stelis cinerea Schltr. 1918; Stelis costaricensis Schltr. 1918
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. 9: 289 Schlechter 1911;
Bull. Misc. Inform. Kew 1913: 141 Rolfe 1913 as S barbata
Beih. Bot. Centralbl. 36(2): 444 Schlechter 1918 as S cinerea;
Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 19: 16. Costa Rica Schlechter 1923 as S bryophila;
Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 19: 16. Costa Rica Schlechter 1923 as S costaricensis;
Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 19: 278. Costa Rica Schlechter 1923 as S costaricensis;
The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946;
Orchids of Guatemala Correl & Ames 1952 drawing ok;
Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965;
Die Orchideen 3 Auflage Bd 1 Sonderabdruck aus Schlechter Lieferung 7 385 - 448 Brieger, Maatsch and Senghas 1975 as S microchyla; drawing hmm;
Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 326 Dodson 1980 drawing fide as Stelis barbata drawing ok;
Las Orquedias de El Salvador Vol 3 Hamer 1981 as Stelis barbata drawing/photo fide;
Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 as S barbataphoto fide;
ORQUIDEA (MEX.) 13(1- 2) Solano DICIEMBRE 1993 drawing fide;
Guatemala Y Sus Orquideas Behar & Tinschert 1998 as S barbata photo fide;
Icones Orchidaceaerum Plate 686 Hagsater & Soto 2002 as S barbata drawing fide;
Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;
Orchids of Mexico Hagsater etal 2005 photo ok;
Orquideas de la Serrania del Baudo Misas Urreta 2005 photo as Stelis barbata drawing/photo ok;
Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz, Compendium Duque 2008 drawing good;
A Compendium of Miniature Orchid Species Vol 2 Parsons and Gerritsen 2013 photo fide;
LANKESTERIANA 13(3) 319-332 2013 as S barbata photo fide;
Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018;
Lankesteriana 19(1). 31 - 55 2019 photo fide;
Orquideas de Farallones de Cali Galindo-Tarazona, Haelterman, Zuluaga Trochez and Sebastian Moreno 2020 photo fide
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