BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, SEPT.-NOV. 1979 _ VOL. 27. No. 7-9 
SYSTEMATICS OF THE GENUS STELIS SW. 
LESLIE A. GARAY 
In preparing the manuscript for the second volume of the 
“Orchids of Ecuador” which includes the genera of the Pleuro- 
thallidinae, | had the opportunity to look at the genus Sre/is 
critically again after some 23 years. Namely, in 1957, as a privi- 
leged recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for Canadians 
which allowed me to spend a year in the Orchid Herbarium of 
Oakes Ames at Harvard University, I had prepared a critical 
study of the genus Sre/is. Although the interest in this unpub- 
lished, book-length monograph has been fairly constant 
throughout the years by both professionals and amateurs alike, 
the chances for its publication grew slimmer for financial rea- 
sons as the years went by. The present synopsis 1s based essen- 
tially on tha® manuscript, but the position of each species has 
been re-evaluated. Consequently the internal structure of the 
genus is quite different from my classification published in 1956 
(Canadian Journ. Bot. 34: 346-359). In that paper I also have 
covered in sufficient details the historical background of the 
genus including the infrageneric classifications. These aspects, 
therefore, are not repeated here. 
In this synopsis the systematics of the genus are completely 
revised and brought in line with the articles of the International 
Code of Botanical Nomenclature. The key to the sections has 
been expanded to include the 22 alliances into which the genus is 
now divided. 
In revising the genus it became apparent that about 32 species 
share in common a special character which cannot be accomo- 
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