Stelis sarcophylla Luer 1981 SECTION Stelis
Drawing by © Oscar Duque
LATE
EARLY
Common Name The Fleshy Leaf Stelis
Flower Size small
Found in Chiriqui province of Panama on scrubby trees at elevations around 1500 meters as a small sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and 1 to 2 others near the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, linear-oblong, wedge shaped in crossection, obtuse, retuse, cuneate below into the sessile base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on a single, arising through a long spathe near the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle 2 to 2.8" [5 to 7 cm] long, rachis erect, distichous, crowded above, 2.8 to 4.4" [7 to 11 cm] long, simultaneously many, many flowered inflorescence with oblique shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying small, purple flowers.
"Most remarkabler for the long, narrrow, fleshy leaves longer than the ramicauls. THe small purple flowers are short-pedicellate; the sepals are similar, ovate, obtuse and widespread; the ligulate lip is rounded and the stigmatic lobes are confluent." Luer 1981
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
*Phytologia 49: 238 (1981 drawing fide
Orquidaeceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing fide
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