Stelis ochreata Lindl. 1859 SECTION Stelis
Drawings by © Carl Luer
LATER
EARLY
Common Name The Ochreate Stelis [refers to the basal bracts of the peduncle]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Antioquia, Valle de Cauca and Cauca departments of Colombia and widespread in Ecuador at elevations around 1500 to 1900 meters as a small sized, cool growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped basally by a loose, tubular sheath below the middle and 2 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-ovate, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later spring, summer and early fall on a single, erect, arising through a spathe at a node below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle 4" [10 cm] long, rachis 8 to 12.8" [20 to 32 cm] long, erect, strict, distichous, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, much longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying purple, sensitive, glabrous, fleshy flowers.
"This variable species occurs frequently in Ecuador, where it was mistakenly identified as the variable Stelis lindenii Lindl. of western Venezuela and Colombia. In Luer (2009a: 162), S. ochreata was erroneously listed in the synonymy of S. lindenii. Stelis ochreata is a large plant with a long, single raceme of many small flowers. The sepals are fleshy, 5-veined, connate to near the middle, and more or less antrorse. The petals are thick and 3-veined, and the lip is concave below a bar." Luer 2018
Synonyms 1798
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
*Fol. Orchid. 8: 2 Lindley 1859;
Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz, A Compendium Duque 2008;
Harvard Pap. Bot. 23:160 Luer & Escobar 2018 drawing fide
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