Stelis ciliaris Lindl. 1836 SUBGENUS Apatostelis Duque 2008 Photo by © Jay Pfahl
Inflorescence Photo by © Eric Hunt and His Orchid Website
LATE 
EARLY
Common Name The Hairy Stelis
Flower Size 3/8" [1 cm]
Found from Mexico to Colombia in hot lowlands and wet premontane forests at elevations of sealevel to 1100 meters as a small sized, hot growing epiphyte with stout sheathed ramicauls carrying a single, apical, linear to elliptic-oblanceolate, obtuse and obliquely 3 toothed or retuse apically, erect, leathery leaf that tapers gradually, basally into a short petiole that blooms in the late fall and early winter on an erect to arching, loosely many flowered, slender, 10" + [25 cm+] long inflorescence with obliquely tubular, reddish floral bracts and has highly variable shaped flowers.
Synonyms Apatostelis ciliaris (Lindl.) Garay 1979; Apatostelis pendulispica (Ames) Garay 1979; Stelis atropurpurea Hook. 1842; Stelis bruchmuelleri Rchb.f 1880; Stelis confusa Schltr. 1918; Stelis eublepharis Rchb.f. 1855; Stelis fimbriata R.K.Baker 1968; Stelis micrantha var. atropurpurea (Hook.) Josst 1851; Stelis pendulispica Ames 1934
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 1101 Hamer & Dodson 1984 as Apatostelis ciliaris drawing ok; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 6 COS 1998 photo fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 photo fide; Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008; An Illustrated Field Guide to the Orchids of the Yotoco Forest Reserve Colombia Kolanowska, Escobar, Sanchez & Szlachetko 2011 drawing good
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