Stelis foetida O.Duque 1997 SECTION Nexipous
TYPE Photo/TYPE Drawing by © Duque and The Epidendra Website
LATE
EARLY 
Common Name The Stinky Stelis [refers to the smelly flowers]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Antioquia department of Colombia at elevations around 2300 meters as a small sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a long tubular sheath in the middle third and 2 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute, tridenticulate, contracted below into the sulcate, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late winter and early spring on 1 to several, erect to arching, distichous, 5.2 to 8" [13 to 20 cm] long including the peduncle, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence arising through an apiculate spathe with infundibular, apiculate, just short to as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying foul smelling, yellowish flowers.
Closely related to S spathulata but separated by the slightly different sepals and petals and the foul smelling flowers.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
*Orquideología Vol 20 #3 pg 342–343, pl. 10, 4 Duque 1997 drawing/photo fide;
Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing/photo fide;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
