Stelis muscifera Lindl. 1859 SECTION Stelis
Drawing by © Carl Luer
EARLY
Common Name The Fly Carrying Stelis [refers to the flower]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Trinidad, Aragua and the Districto Federal states of Venezuela and Tungurahua, Pastaza, Napo, Morona-Santiago and Zamora-Chinchipe provinces of Ecuador at elevations around 800 to 1600 meters as a miniature sized, warm to cool growing densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a loose, tubular sheath near the middle and 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical to narrowly elliptical, subacute to obtuse, narrowly cuneate below into the indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall and winter on an erect, distichous, congested, 6 to 7.2" [15 to 18 cm] long including the 1.6 to 2" [4 to 5 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously several, many flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul with oblique, acute, longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying purple flowers with a dark purple central apparatus.
"Vegetatively variable with the ramicaul noticeably shorter than the leaf. The raceme is characterized by more or less conspicuous, alternating floral bracts. The shape of the flowers with all three broadly ovate sepals much wider than long and deeply connate into a broad, flat flowers is similar to that of the larger, more robst S tristyla. The petals are semi-lunate witha thick, flat margin and a transverse callus. The type "A" lip is triangular and obtuse witha narrow glenion." Luer 2009
Kew puts this one a a synonym of S grandiflora
Synonyms Stelis amblyophylla Schltr. 1919; Stelis bangii Rolfe 1895; Stelis trinitatis Ames 1923; Stelis trinitensis Ames ex Broadway 1926
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1961 drawing fide;
Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing fide;
Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 as S tristyla not drawing fide;
Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide;
Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 as S bangii not drawing fide;
Orquideas de Bolivia Vol 1 Vasquez & Ibisch 2000 as S bangii;
Orquideas de Bolivia Vol 1 Vasquez & Ibisch 2000;
Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003 as S bangii;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Luer 2009
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Luer 2009 drawing fide
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