Stelis eublepharis Rchb.f. 1855 SUBGENUS Stellata SECTION Pedales

Photo by © Alex Reynolds and the ORCHIDS of MAQUIPUCUNA Website

Common Name The Strong Lashes Stelis [refers to the cilia on the petals and sepals]

Flower Size .1" [3 mm]

Found in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and northwestern Venezuela at elevations around 2100 meters as a miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect ramicauls envelop[ed basally by 2 to 3, tubular, acute to acuminate sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, widely oblanceolate to elliptic-obloanceolate, acute and minutely tridenticulate, narrowly attenuate-cuneate below into the elongate, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on an erect, laxly several flowered, to 4.8" [12 cm] long, racemose inflorescence.

Synonyms Stelis bruchmuelleri Rchb.f. 1880; Stelis eublepharis var. glabriflora C.Schweinf. 1953

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , *Bonplandia Rchb.f 1855; Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1965 drawing ok; Flora de Venezuela Volumen 15 Parte 2 Foldats 1970 drawing ok; Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing ok; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing ok; Orquideas Nativas del Tachira Cesar Fernandez 2003 photo fide; Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 2 1970; Fieldiana Biology, Vol 33, 1st Supple. to the Orchids of Peru Schweinfurth 1970; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 4 1992 photo fide; Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008; Las Orquideas del Peru Izerskyy & Bezverhov 2011 photo ok

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