Stelis alleyoop Luer & R.Escobar 2016 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name Alley Oop's Stelis [refers to the Rough hairy faces caveman Alley Oop a 1934 cartoon charater created by V T Hamlin]

Flower Size .24" [6 mm]

Found in Cundinamarca department of Colombia at elevations around 2800 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose-fasciculate or ascending-repent terrestrial with ascending to erect to fasciculate, stout ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath near the middle and 1 to 2 others below at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, gradually narrowing below into the ill-defined petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a single, through a spathe from a node below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle less than 2 to 3.2" [5 to 8 cm] long, rachis to 4.8 to 6.4" [12 to 16 cm] long, erect, strict, congested, secund, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with many capsules and with tubular, oblique, obtuse, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying light yellow-green flowers.

"Both caespitose and creeping phases of the habit of this species occur, apparently depending on local conditions. Most notable is a robust, .2" [5 mm] thick ascending or branching rhizome that is clad in tubular, disintegrating sheaths. Ramicauls arise singly, or several in a fascicle. A single, many-flowered, secund raceme that produces numerous capsules far exceeds the leaf. The sepals are five veined and long-pubescent; the petals are thin and three veined; and the lip type "A" with a glenion and rounded apex." Luer 2016

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Harvard Pap. Bot. 21: 59 Luer & Escobar 2016 drawing fide

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