Stelis ophioglossoides (Jacq.) Sw. 1799 SUBGENUS Stellata SECTION Distichae S. eliator alliance
plant and Inflorescence Photos by © Roger Graveson and His The Plants Of Saint Lucia Website
Plant and Flowers Photo by © Richard Gautier and His Orchid Website
Common Name The Snake's Tongue Stelis [refers to the double inflorescence]
Flower Size 1/8" [4mm]
Found in Cuba, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, The Windward Islands, Venezuela, French Guiana and Surinam? in low elevation forests or in open fields at elevations of 200 to 1100 meters as a miniature sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with clustered, triquetreous above, ramicauls enveloepd by 1 to2 tubular basal sheaths and another at the middle and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptic-oblong to elliptical, subobtuse to tridenticulate, narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms at any timew of the year on 1 to 3, as long or slightly longer than the leaf, to 3.6" [9cm] long, slender, distichous, loosely many flowered inflorescence arising through an acute spathe and has cucculate, shortly apiculate floral bracts
Synonyms *Epidendrum ophioglossoides Jacq. 1760; Epidendrum trigoniflorum Sw. 1788; Dendrobium ophioglossoides (Jacq.) Sw. 1799; Pleurothallis ophioglossoides (Jacq.) Garay & H.R.Sweet 1972; Stelis cristalensis H.Dietr. 1985; Stelis scabrida Lindl. 1840; Stelis toepfferiana Rchb.f. 1886; Stelis trigoniflora (Sw.) Garay 1978
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Symbolae Antillanae Vol VI Orchidaceae Urban 1909; Symbolae Antillanae Vol VI Orchidaceae Urban 1909 as Stelis toepfferiana; Symbolae Antillanae Vol VI Orchidaceae Urban 1909 as S scabrida; Flora of Jamaica Fawcett & Rendle 1910 drawing fide; Native Orchids of Trinidad Schultes 1960; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965; Flora of the Lesser Antilles Garay & Sweet 1974 as S scabrida drawing fide; Flora of the Lesser Antilles Garay & Sweet 1974; Orchidaceae Antillanae Nir 2000; Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003 drawing ok; Orchidaceae Stelis , A Compendium Duque 2008
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