Stelis agatha Luer & Hirtz 2013 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

LATE EARLY

Common Name or Meaning The Fine Stelis [refers to the handsome plant]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Ecuador without locality as a miniature sized, caespitose epiphyte with stout, erect ramicauls enveloped by a loose tubular sheath below the middle and 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute to obtuse, gradually narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on an erect, arising from a node .2" [5 mm] low on the ramicaul through a slender spathe, peduncle 2 to 2.4" [5 to 6 cm] long, rachis strict, crowded, distichous, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with longer than the pedicel floral bracts and carrying a flower with fleshy, glabrous, dull green, inner 2/3's suffed with dull purple sepals, thick, green petals and a green lip.

"This large, caespitose species of SECTION Stelis is distinguished by a crowded, distichous raceme of large flowes with five-veined dorsal sepals, thick, fleshy petals and a rounded lip with a minute, marginal apiculum similar to that seen in Stelis argentata Lindl." Luer 2013

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Harvard Papers in Botany, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 173 to 196 2013 MISCELLANEOUS NEW SPECIES IN THE PLEUROTHALLIDINAE (ORCHIDACEAE) Carlyle A. Luer & Lisa Thoerle drawing fide;

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