Stelis benzingii Luer & Hirtz 2002 SECTION Stelis Photos/ by © The Ecuagenera Website

Common Name Benzing’s Stelis [American Botany Professor and co-collector of species]

Flower Size .24” [6 mm]

Found in lowland coastal Ecuador at low elevations as a miniature sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with erect slender ramicauls enveloped by a loose, tubular sheath on the middle third and 2 to 3 others in the lower third and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous,ovate, acute, cuneate below into the indistinct, petiolate base leaf that blooms on an erect, loose, distichous to secund, 6 to 9.6” [ 15 to 24 cm] long including the 2” [5 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul with oblique, tubular floral bracts.

Differs from the widespread S argentata by the larger, non-resupinate flowers with elongated ovaries that are loosely arranged on the inflorescence. The lip margin is sharply tridentate which is similar to S vulcanica but S vulcanica has smaller and glabrous flowers.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIV Luer & Hirtz 2007 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 drawing good; AOS Bulletin Vol #9 2019 photo fide;

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