Stelis superbiens Lindl. 1858 SUBGENUS Stellata SECTION Monostachyae Duque 2008 Photo by J & L Orchids and their Orchid Catalog

Inflorescence Photo courtesy of Dr. Jeanette Rilling

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Common Name The Really Nice and Large Stelis

Flower Size .4" to .6" [1 to 1.5 cm]

It is impossible to be certain of this photo determination.

Found in Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru at elevations of 1000 to 2000 meters as a medium to just large sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with stout, erect, close set ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 basal sheaths and another inflated one in the upper third and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceosu, elliptic-oblong, obtuse, tridentate, cuneate below into the short conduplicate petiolate base leaf that blooms on an erct to arched, racemose, disitchous, lto 18" [45 cm] long, laxly many flowered inflorescence arising through a conduplicate spathe with infundibular floral bracts that cover the majority of the pedicel.

Synonyms Stelis cascajalensis Ames 1923; Stelis convallarioides Garay 1956; Stelis eximia Ames 1923; Stelis koehleri Schltr. 1912 ; Stelis leucopogon Rchb. f. 1866; Stelis propinqua Ames 1923

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965 as S cascajalensis photo ok; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 1288 Hamer 1985 as S propinqua drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 photo ok; Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz, A Compendium Duque 2008

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