We consider an action of a connected compact Lie group on a Stein manifold by holomorphic transformations. We prove that the manifold is spherical if and only if there exists an antiholomorphic involution preserving each orbit. Moreover, for a spherical Stein manifold, we construct an antiholomorphic involution, which is equivariant with respect to the Weyl involution of the acting group, and show that this involution stabilizes each orbit. The construction uses some properties of spherical subgroups invariant under certain real automorphisms of complex reductive groups.