Stelis tenuissima Schltr. 1918

Drawing by © R Solano and The Herbario AMO Website

LATER EARLY

Common Name The Most Delicate Stelis

Flower Size .08" [2mm]

Found in Chiapas state of Mexico, Guatemala and Panama in cloud-forests on oaks at elevations around 1600 to 1900 meters as a miniature sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with short, erect stems carrying an erect, linear to semi-terete, obtuse, oblique, fleshy leaf that blooms in the later spring through early summer on an erect, racemose, peduncle terete, less than 1.2" [3 cm] long, arising through a basal, conduplicate, narrowly triangular, acuminate spathe and 2 shortly tubular, obtuse, shortly apiculate membraneous-transluscent bracts above, longer than the leaf, 2.4 to 3.2" [6 to 8 cm] long overall, rachis erect to arcuate, about as thin as the peduncle, 25 to 35 flowered inflorescence with obliquely infundibuliform, obtuse, shortly apiculate, wide mouthed, dorsally carinate, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying distichous, coffee brown purple to yellow flowers all held on one side of the inflorescence.

"Characterized by the linear to semiterete leaves, the small flowers, the ovate, three nerved, acute sepals, the obiquely orbicular-quadrate, obtuse to truncate, single nerved petlas and a orbicular-rhomboid, shortly cilaite on each side of the base, the interior with an ovate, longitudinally thick and sulcate callus." Solano 1993

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

ORQUIDEA (MEX.) 13(1- 2) Solano and Soto Arenas . DICIEMBRE 1993 drawing fide;

Orchidaceae Stelis Sw. A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing fide;

Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018

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