Stelis ciliaris Lindley (1836: 353)

Ignowski, Helena, Toscano De Brito, A. L. V., Bona, Cleusa & Smidt, Eric De Camargo, 2015, Nomenclatural notes on Stelis ciliaris (Pleurothallidinae, Orchidaceae), Phytotaxa 218 (1), pp. 30-38 : 31-37

Stelis ciliaris Lindley (1836: 353) . Type:— MEXICO. s. loc., s.d., K.T. Hartweg s.n. (holotype K 00079917!)

Homotypic synonym:

Apatostelis ciliaris (Lindl.) Garay (1979: 188) .

Heterotypic synonyms:

Stelis atropurpurea Hooker (1842: t. 3975). Type:— MEXICO. s. loc., February 1839, Parkinson s.n. (holotype K 000573961!). Stelis micrantha var. atropurpurea (Hook.) Josst (1851: 38)

Stelis confusa Schlechter (1918: 386) . Type :— MEXICO. Vera Cruz, Zacuapan (as “Zacuapam”), March 1913, C.A. Purpus 2122 (holotype B †; photograph of the type and drawings based on the type: AMES 23706! and AMES 30418!).

Stelis jimenezii Schlechter (1918: 389) . Type:— COSTA RICA. San José: Alajuelita, La Verbena (as “Ladertena, Hajuelito”), February 1912, O. Jiménez 621 (holotype B†; lectotype here designated: isotype comprised by a dried leaf and a flower preserved on glycerin slide AMES 55235!).

Stelis pendulispica Ames (1934: 85) . Type:— COSTA RICA. Candelaria, 3 August 1925, A. Alfaro 141 (holotype AMES 30989!).

Stelis leinigii Pabst (1967: 7) . Type:— BRAZIL. Paraná: Guaratuba , epiphytic on trees of restinga vegetation, 350 m from the beach, 6 January 1960, M. Leinig 167 (holotype HB 18339!); same locality, near Tenente river , 3 m., near the beach, 9 December 1959, fl. cult. December 1960, M. Leinig 220 (paratype HB 19498!). Apatostelis leinigii (Pabst) Garay (1979: 189) .

Stelis fimbriata Baker (1968: 68) . Type:— PANAMA. Panama: Cerro Jefe, in mossy forest near summit, 2000 ft., 11 February 1967, R.K. Baker 249 (MO, lost). Neotype (designated by Luer 2009):— PANAMA. Darien: Cerro Tacarcuma, Serrania del Darien, 700 m, s.d., A.H. Gentry & S.A. Mori 13182 (MO, not located).

Stelis gratiosa Luer (1979: 192) . Type :— PANAMA. Cerro Jefe, 1000 m, 2 March 1976, flowered in cultivation at SEL, greenhouse acc. no. 43-76-155, 8 may 1977, C.A. Luer, J. Luer & P.G. Taylor 1619 (holotype SEL 018380!; isotype SEL 041265!).

Apatostelis garayi Dunsterville (1981: 1075) . Type:— VENEZUELA. Bolívar: Salto Paravan, Río Yuruan , 250 m, s.d., G.C.K. Dunsterville 1418 (holotype AMES; isotypes: SEL–spirit!; VEN). Stelis garayi (Dunst.) Carnevali & I. Ramírez (1990: 556) .

Stelis mystax-felis Luer & Toscano (2012: 2) . Type:— BRAZIL. Without precise locality: flowered in cultivation at São Paulo Botanical Garden at Piracicaba, March 2007, C.A. Luer illustr. 21214, D.H. Baptista 1957, (holotype MBML 048276!)

Stelis uhlii Chiron (2013: 127) . Type:— BRAZIL. Espírito Santo: Marechal Floriano, Bom Jesus, fl. cult.. March–April 2012, P. Uhl s.n. ex G.R. Chiron 2122 (holotype MBML 04177!)

John Lindley described Stelis ciliaris in 1837 based on a Mexican specimen collected by the German Botanist Karl Theodor Hartweg (1812–1871). Lindley’s description was unillustrated and did not provide a precise locality or date for Hartweg’s collection. The holotype of S. ciliaris ( Fig. 1 ) is deposited in Lindley’s herbarium at K and contains no information about locality and collector’s name. In 1859, Lindley published a short description for S. ciliaris and placed S. atropurpurea Hooker , another Mexican species described in 1842, in its synonymy. He cited an additional Mexican collection (Linden 213) from Mirador, Province of Vera Cruz, collected in 1839 by the Belgian botanist and explorer Jean Jules Linden (1817–1898). Duplicates of Linden’s collection are found in a number of major herbaria and some of them have been erroneously annotated as isotype of S. ciliaris . For an unexplained reason, Lindley omitted Hartweg’s collection from his 1858 citation. However, this omission was certainly unintentional and might have been caused by an editorial error.

Stelis ciliaris is a small to medium plant up to ca. 25 cm tall with pendent or arched inflorescence ( Fig. 2A ), but this last character is sometimes obscured in dried specimens because the inflorescences are usually straightened up during the drying process. Occasionally, the penducle of the inflorescence is erect and only the rachis is arched. Flowers are variable in color, ranging from rose, red-purple and purple-green, green, greenish-yellow to yellow, usually with long, whitish trichomes on the sepals, especially on the margins and tips. Flowers of a same individual may be produced, however, with distinct colors in alternate flowering seasons, and distinct flower color may even occur on a same inflorescence ( Fig. 2B–F ). The lip, petals and sepals of S. ciliaris are minutely papillose and this can be more clearly seen with the aid of the scanning electron microscope ( Fig. 3A–G ). The sepals are usually provided with long trichomes ( Fig. 3A–B ), which are easily seen with a naked eye ( Fig. 2B–F ). However, the occurrence of these trichomes is also very variable. They occur on the adaxial surfaces of the dorsal and lateral sepals including their margins, and sometimes are located on the apical portion of the sepals only. In some cases they are present only on the tip of one of the sepals or are completely absent in flowers of some populations. These trichomes seem to be caducous in some individuals and apparently fall off with flower aging. This variation in color and sepals pubescence led to description of number of synonyms listed herewith.

Stelis ciliaris is widely distributed in the Neotropics, ranging from Mexico through Central America, Ecuador and Venezuela ( Luer 2009). It was recently recorded for the north and central west of Brazil (Barros et al. 2015) and has been redescribed three times with different names based on collections from southeastern Brazil. Duque-Hernández (2008) reported S. ciliaris for the Antilles without providing any supporting evidence. The complete absence of vouchers rendered his work useless. We have not been able to find any reference or collection indicating that this species occur in the Antilles.

Luer (2009) provided an extensive list of specimen citations and notes on the distribution of Stelis ciliaris . We do not review or repeat it here. In this article, we only cite the historical material and Brazilian collections that we have studied, since this species is here for the first time recorded for the south and southeast of this country. This species has a long list of synonyms, which has been updated in this work. Some of the synonyms are discussed in the following paragraphs.

Stelis leinigii Pabst was described in 1967 based on two collections from the restinga vegetation (vegetation of coastal sandy soils along the coast) in the municipality of Guaratuba, state of Paraná. The flowers on the type specimens present sepals covered with minute papillae only and no elongate trichomes. They fit otherwise the flowers of typical S. ciliaris . As already discussed here, these trichomes may be present or absent on sepals of S. ciliaris . The absence of trichomes on the sepals of the types of S. leinigii might have led Pabst to believe that he was dealing with a distinct species. Stelis leinigii is here considered conspecific with S. ciliaris .

Stelis mystax-felis Luer & Toscano was recently described based on a specimen without exact provenance cultivated in the orchid collection of Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ), located in Piracicaba, state of São Paulo. The floral morphology of this species is within the variation range of S. ciliaris and, for this reason, is here considered a synonym.

Stelis uhlii Chiron , recently described for Espírito Santo, in southeast Brazil, is only a yellow-flowered form and is here interpreted as a synomym of S. ciliaris .

The holotype of Stelis confusa Schlechter , a synonym of S. ciliaris , was destroyed by the World War II bombing of the Berlin-Dahlem herbarium (B). Two collections at the orchid herbarium of Oakes Ames (AMES) help us better understand the identity of S. confusa . One of them, AMES 30418 ( Fig. 4A ), includes a photograph of the holotype originally preserved at B and a floral analysis prepared by Oakes Ames, presumably based on a flower from the type specimen. Ames’s illustration shows ciliate sepals as opposed to Schlechter’s original drawing, published posthumously by Mansfeld (1931), which shows glabrous sepals. The second collection at AMES is numbered 23706 ( Fig. 4B ) and consists of a complete illustration of the type specimen, including habit and floral dissection. The drawings representing the floral analysis are pencil copies of Schlechter’s original illustrations originally at B and later published by Mansfeld in 1931. The illustration at the center of the sheet was clearly based on the type specimen. At present, we cannot ascertain the authorship of the pencil copies at AMES. According to Garay (2015, pers. com.), the pencil copies at AMES were prepared under Schechter’s supervision and were made by a German artist hired by Oakes Ames. The correspondence exchanged between Schlechter and Oakes Ames has been recently digitized at Harvard University and will soon be available (Romero-González 2015, pers. com.). Study of these manuscripts might shed some light on this issue. Both sheets at AMES contain invaluable information and are possible epitypes to be selected in the future.”

As in the case of Stelis confusa discussed above, the holotype of Stelis jimenezii Schlechter was also destroyed during the bombing of Berlin-Dahlem herbarium. A fragment of the type specimen, an isotype comprised by a leaf and a flower preserved on glycerin slide, exists at AMES ( Fig. 5 ). The herbarium sheet contains a photograph of the type specimen destroyed at B, copy of the original illustration published later by Mansfeld (1931), a drawing based on a fertile specimen on the type sheet (compare to the specimen shown on the upper left side of the photograph of the holotype destroyed at B), and copy of an illustration prepared by Blanche Ames based on the type specimen, which was first published by Ames in 1935 and later reproduced by Ames and Correll in 1952. This isotype collection is here selected as lectotype.

Additional material examined: BRAZIL. São Paulo: Caraguatatuba, September 2009, Smidt & Rodrigues 937 (UPCB—spirit). Paraná: Guaratuba, Paranaguá, Ilha do Mel , 5 January 1999, Kersten 358 (UPCB) ; Bituruna, Rio Iguaçu, Salto Grande , 17 October 1966, Hatschbach 14956 (MBM). Santa Catarina: Itapoá, 13 March 2014, Ignowski 29 (UPCB) .

Figures

FIGURE 1. Stelis ciliaris Lindl. Holotype deposited in Lindley’s herbarium at K. Reproduced with permission of The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

FIGURE 2. Habit and variation in color of Stelis ciliaris Lindl. A. Habit. B–F. Inflorescence. Scale bar A = 1 cm, B–F = 1 mm. (A: Ignowski 29; B–F: Smidt & Rodrigues 937).

FIGURE 3. SEM of Stelis ciliaris Lindl. A. Flower, general view. B. Elongate trichomes on apex of dorsal sepal. C. Papillae on adaxial surface of dorsal sepal.D. Petals, lip and column. E. Lip in front view. F. Trichomes on glenion. G. Papillae on adaxial surface of lip. Scale bar A = 1 mm, B–E = 100 μm, C, F and G = 50 μm, D =500 μm. (A–G: Ignowski 29).

FIGURE 4. S. confusa Schltr. A. Herbarium sheet 30418 at AMES containing a photograph of the holotype originally preserved at B and Ames’s notes and sketches based on a flower from the holotype. B. Herbarium sheet of 23706 at AMES comprising copies of Schlechter’s original illustrations and Ames’s notes and sketches based on a flower from the holotype. Courtesy of the Orchid Herbarium of Oakes Ames, Harvard University Herbaria.

FIGURE 5. Lectotype of Stelis jimenezii Schltr. proposed here: Jiménez 621, AMES 55235. The lectotype collection comprises a leaf (shown on the photograph) and a flower preserved on glycerin slide. Courtesy of the Orchid Herbarium of OakesAmes, Harvard University Herbaria.