Stelis atroculata Luer & Hirtz 2013 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

EARLY

Common Name or Meaning The Dark Eyed Stelis [refers to the pale flowers with a dark eye-like spot formed by the lip in the central apparatus]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Carchi province of Ecuador at elevations around 1800 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with adjacent, fascicled ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and another one at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the early summer on 1 to 2, erect, arising from a node at the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle .4" [1 cm] long, 1.2 to 2.2" [3 to 5.5 cm] long overall, strict, congested, mostly simultaneously 10 to 15 flowered inflorescence with just shorter than to as long as the pedicel floral bracts and carrying flowers with yellow tepals and a dark red-purple lip .

"This small, caespitose species of SECTION Stelis is distinguished by one or two racemes of small overlapping flowers, with broadly ovate, pale yellow sepals that contrast with a dark red purple lip. The proportionately large petals are thickly subtriangular with a broad margin that is microscopically pubescent. The lip is classic type A." Luer 2013

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

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

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