Stelis pardipes Rchb.f. 1866 SECTION Humboldtia
photos by © Ellen Woods and Digital Flora of Las Cruces Website
Drawing by © Carl Luer and Selbyana 32(1,2): 82 Luer & Vasquez 2018
Common Name The Spotted Foot Stelis [refers to the cauline sheaths]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Guatemala, Heridia province of Costa Rica, Panama, Antioquia, Quindio, Tolima, Cauca, Nariño and Putumayo departments of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia 1000 to 2500 meters as a small sized, warm to cold growing, caespitose to shortly ascending epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath near the middle amd 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical-oblong, subacute to acute, narrowly cuneate below into the petiolate base lef that blooms in the summer fall and winter on an erect, congested to subcongested, distichous to secund, 2.4 to 8" [6 to 20 cm] long including the .4 to 1.2" [1 to 3 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence arising from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul with infundibular, longer to as long as the pedicel floral bracts and carrying nutant, bilabiate flowers with light green to rose to purple sepals, Light green to purple petals and a green to purple lip.
"Vegetatively, the plants are usually slender and caespitose to shortly ascending with narrow leaves. One or two long, erect inflorescences bear numerous, simultaneous, small flowers. The lateral sepals are variously connate, or adherent to their apices into a deeply concave synsepal. The petals are broadly triangular with the thickened apex obtuse, and with the tip contracted into a short or long process. Specimens with the process shorter than the body of the lip have been identified as S. guatemalensis. Stelis pardipes Rchb.f. should not be confused with the common, prolific S. triseta Lindl. with surprisingly similar, individual flowers." Luer & Vasquez 2018
Synonyms Stelis albertii Schltr. 1923; Stelis bella O.Duque 1997; Stelis longicuspis Schltr. 1910; *Stelis triseta var. pardipes (Rchb.f.) C.Schweinf. 1951;
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; ,
*Beitr. Orchid.-K. C. Amer.: 96 Rchb.f. 1866;
Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. 9: 28 Schlechter 1910 as S longicuspis;
Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. Beih. 19: 170 Schlechter 1923 as S albertii;
Bot. Mus. Leafl. 15: 24 Schweinfurth 1951 as S triseta var pardipes;
Orchids of Peru Vol 1 Schweinfurth 1958 as S triseta var pardipes;
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 triseta var pardipes;
Orquideologia Vol 20 #3 1997 as S bella drawing/photo fide;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 photo ok;
Orquideas de Bolivia Vol 1 Vasquez & Ibisch 2000 as S vagans;
Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;
Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz, A Compendium Duque 2008 as S vagans;
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;
Orchid Species Of Peru Zelenko & Bermudez 2009 photo fide;
Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018;
Selbyana 32(1,2): 82 Luer & Vasquez 2018;
Selbyana 32(1,2): 150 Luer & Vasquez 2018 Drawing fide;
Harvard Pap. Bot. 23: 161 Luer & Escobar 2018 drawing fide;
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