Stelis cladophora Luer & R.Escobar 2017 SECTION Humboldtia

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name The Branch Bearing Stelis [refers to the prolific habit]

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in Santander department of Colombia at elevations around 2800 meters as a mini-miniature to miniature sized, cold growing, ascending caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a loose, tubular sheath below the middle ans 1 to 2 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ovate, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a single, arising through a spathe from a node near the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle .8 to 2" [2 to 5 cm], rachis to 4.8 to 6.8" [12 to 17 cm] long, erect, distichous, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, acuminate, shorter than to as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying dark purple flowers with glabrous sepals.

"This small species is distinguished by a thick, creeping rhizome wrapted by the numerous roots it produces. Erect ramicauls with an obtuse, elliptical leaf produce a single, crowded raceme of relatively large flowers. The pubescent sepals and the lips are 3-veined. Upon the large, erect callus of the lip, a low, horseshoe-shaped callus defines the margins of the loop." Luer 2017

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

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

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