Stelis vestita Ames 1923 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Blanche Ames

Common Name The Clothed Stelis [refers to the pilose glandular hairs covering the floral surfaces]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama in wet montane forests at elevations around 1200 to 2000 meters as a small to medium sized, warm to cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, very fleshy, narrowly elliptic-oblong, obtuse, subsessile to attenuate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on an erect, 7.6" to 13.2" [19 to 33 cm] long overall, rachis 4 to 7.2" [10 to 18cm] long, , many flowered inflorescence with infundibular floral bracts.

Allied to S argentata and S leucopogon

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Schedul. Orchid. 6: 56 Ames 1923;

The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946 drawing fide;

Las Orquideas de El Salvador Vol 2 Hamer 1974 as S vestita not = S vespertina;

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

Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz Compendium Duque 2008 drawing fide;

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

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