Stelis sanchoi Ames 1923 SECTION Stelis

Photo by © Daniel Mclaren and his Flickr Orchid Photo Webpage

Common Name Sancho's Stelis [Alfredo Sancho Costa Rican Botanist 1900's]

Flower Size

Found in Costa Rica and Panama in very wet and pluvial forests at elevations of 500 to 1550 meters as a miniature sized, warm to cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with ramicaule enveloped by 2 fibrous, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect,narrowly elliptic-lanceolate, coriaceous, subacute, tridenticulate apically, attenuate below into the very short, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on an erect, slender, peduncle 1.4 to 2.2" [3.5 to 5.5 cm] long, arsing through a spathe, to 4.2" [10.5 cm] long overall, distichous, slightly flexuous, many flowered inflorescence with cucullate, infundibular, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts carrying glabrous, clear yellowish-green flowers.

"Similar to S bradei but distinguished by the shorter stems and smaller leaves, It differs from S rhodochiela in having twice larger flowers. It differs from S microchila in the dissimilar lip." Ames 1923 CAUTION I am not positive of this determination so please use with caution, refersnces state flowers clear yellow green and the photo does not allow intimate investigation of the central apparatus

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Schedul. Orchid. 4: 13 Ames 1923

Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;

Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing good;

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