A very nice little Stelis species from Costa Rica, my first. I have actually had this one since December but it really took off after moving in to the cool vivarium this spring. It just finished blooming on five inflorescences, each holding approximately 10-15 beautiful deep burgundy flowers measuring about 1 cm and lasting for over 2 months. The flowers themselves are not very spectacular, but so many blooming at the same time created quite an impressive display.
Stelis is a large genus with about 500 species distributed throughout the damp mountain forests of tropical North and Central America. Apparently most Stelis are white, or varying shades of white, so this coloration could be rare. The flowers are photosensitive, which mean that they react to sunlight and only open during the day. Some species actually close their flowers completely at night, but I could not quite tell about this particular one… hard to see much detail when the light go out…
