Stelis santiagoensis Mansf. 1928
SECTION Stelis
Photo by Gerard Guillot and The Orchidees De Guyane Website
Drawing by GCK Dunsterville
Common Name The Santiago Stelis [A river and community in Peru where the species was first discovered]
Flower Size .08" [2 mm]
Found in French Guiana, Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru in dwarf forests at elevations around 160 to 2000 meters as a miniature to small sized, hot to cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, subacute, narrowly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms on an erect, distichous, laxly to densely, to 2.8 to 6" [7 to 15 cm] long including the .8" [2 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously few to several, many flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe from the base of the leaf with cucullate, apiculate, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying yellow to pale green flowers.
Easy to recognize by its inflorescence of little star-like flowers and by its unique tuft of hairs at the center of the exposed face of the petals. Compare with the petals of S furfuracea
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Notizbl. Bot. Gart. Berlin-Dahlem 10: 239 Mansf. 1928
Orchids of Peru Vol 1 Schweinfurth 1958;
Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 4 Dusterville & Garay 1966 drawing fide;
Flora de Venezuela Volumen XV Parte 2 Foldats 1970 drawing good;
Orchids of Venezuela An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing good;
Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing good;
Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003;
Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing fide;
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