Stelis scaphoides O.Duque 1997 SECTION Humboldtia
TYPE Photo/TYPE Drawing by Oscar Duque and The Epidendra Website
LATE 
EARLY 
Common Name The Boat Shaped Lip Stelis [refers to the lip]
Flower Size
Found in Valle De Cauca department of Colombia at elevations around 1800 meters as a miniature sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a long tubular sheath in the upper third and 2 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, tridenticulate, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late fall and early winter on an erect, arising through a spathe at the base of the leaf, loose, 3.6" [9 cm] long including the .8" [2 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with infundibular, a bit longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying red flowers witha white central apparatus.
"The flower of S. scaphoides presents certain similarities with those of two species of Stelis with pointed lip: in S. porpax the lip is pointed but it does not have a basal plate, the shape of the petals is different and 1-veined, and the sepals are free; in S. pugiunculi the lateral lobes of the lips are well defined, separated from the pointed apex by an incisure, the petals are mucronate, the lateral sepals are connate only basally, and the plant is usually prolific. S. scaphoides may be reconized by its red flowers with synsepal, the green central apparatus, the 3-veined rhombic petals and by the navicular pointed lip with a villous basal plate. The plant is not common. " O Duque 2008
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
*: Orquideologia Vol 20 #3 pg 369 Duque 1997 drawing/photo fide;
Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium 2008 drawing fide;
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