Stelis caudex Luer & R.Escobar 2017 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name The Thick Rhizome Stelis

Flower Size .24" [6 mm]

Found in Cauca, Nariño and Putumayo departments of Colombia at elevations around 3200 to 3500 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, long repent epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a loose, tubular sheath and 1 to 2 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a single, from a node below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle 1.6" [4 cm], rachis to 3.2 to 5.6" [8 to 14 cm] long, erect, distichous, congested, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with tubular, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying yellow flowers with short brown pubescence on the sepals.

"This strong species is characterized by an ascendingcaespitose habit with thick, prolific ramicauls. A simultaneously many-flowered raceme of large, dark purple flowers with a deeply concave synsepal surpasses the leaf about thrice the length. The lateral sepals are held in apposition, although only semiconnate. The thick, semilunate petals are proportionately large. A row of three, low, rounded calli occupy the dorsum of the lip." Luer 2017

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Harvard Pap. Bot. 22: 30 Luer & Escobar 2017 drawing fide

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