Stelis veraguasensis Luer 2001 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Website

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Veragua Stelis [a province in Panama]

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in Veragua departemnt of Panama at elevations around 500 meters as a small sized, hot to warm growing, caespitose epiphyte with an erect, stout ramicaul enveloped by 2 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse to rounded, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on an erect, arising from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, subdense, distichous, 6 to 8" [15 to 20 cm] long including the 1.2 to 2 " [3 to 5 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously several, many flowered inflorescence with infundibular, as long as the pedicel floral bracts.

"This species is apparently rare in central Panama. It is a large, robust plant with a tall raceme of large, bilabiate flowers. Appearing as a gigantic variation of the Costa Rican Stelis lankesteri, it differs from the latter in the following: a larger habit with twice broader leaves; twice larger floral parts; acute, slightly acuminate, cordate-ovate petals; and lip with the apical margin thick and subacute with a small, rounded apiculum. " Luer 2001

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Selbyana 22(2): 126-127, f. 19 Luer 2001 drawing fide;

Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz , A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing fide;

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