Stelis applanata Luer & Hirtz 2002 SECTION Humboldtia
Photo by © S Manning
Photo by © Patricia Harding
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
EARLY
Common Name The Alternating Stelis [refers to the flowers in the inflorescence]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Imbabura province of Ecuador at elevations around 950 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the base leaf that blooms in the early summer on an erect, arising through an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, congested, peduncle 1.2" [3 cm] long, rachis 1.6" [4 cm] long, secund, several flowered, inflorescence with tubular, as long as the ovary floral bracts.
"Distinguished by the small habit with the flowers of the raceme overlapping and facing in one direction. The dorsal sepal is ovate and sistinctly longer than the shallowly concave synsepal that is held below in the same plane. The petals are broadly semilunate. The lip is thickly ovate and shallowly concave. The dorsum does not slope downward as in the closely allied S memorialis." Luer 2002
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXIV A First Century of Stelis of Ecuador 88: 62 Luer 2002
Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXIV A First Century of Stelis of Ecuador 88: 62 Luer 2002 drawing fide;
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