Stelis tricardium Lindl. 1859 SUBGENUS Stellata SECTION Disticha purpurescens alliance Duque 2008 Photo by © Patricia Harding

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Common Name The Three Hearts Stelis

Flower Size .16" [3.5 mm]

Found in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia? at elevations of 1500 to 2900 meters as a small sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with slender ramicauls enveloped completely by 2 to 3 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect,coriaceous, oblong-cuneate to oblanceolate or spathulate, obtuse, long attenuate below into the channeled, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late winter and spring on a suberect to diffuse, to 7" [17.5 cm] long includfing the 2 to 3.2” [5 to 8 cm] long peduncle, rather loosely many flowered inflorescence aring through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul with tubular, obtuse floral bracts

This species, S cuencana and S piestopus are all said to be synomonous with S tricardium being the species by many authors but Luer keeps them separate. All three are related to S argentata.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos,Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Die Orchideen Schlechter 1915; Die Orchideen der Sudamerikanischen Kordillerenstaaten IV Peru Schlechter 1921 as S piestopus; Orchids of Peru vol 1 Schweinfurth 1958; First supplement to the Orchids of Peru Schweinfurth 1970; Orchids of Bolivia Pleurothallidinae Vasquez & Ibisch 2000; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 771 Bennett & Christenson 2001 drawing fide except inflorescence is not fractiflex; Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Luer 2009 drawing hmm

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