Stelis culmosa Luer & R.Escobar 2017 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and Harvard Pap. Bot. 22: 86 Luer 2017

Common Name The Stem Filled Stelis [refers to the masses of clustered ramicauls]

Flower Size .24" [6 mm]

Found in Santander department of Colombia at elevations around 2800 meters as a miniature to small sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath near the middle and another 2 at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute, narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on 2 to 3, erect, arising from a node below the apex abscission layer, peduncle .8 to 1.2" [2 to 3 cm] long, erect, distichous, rachis 3.2 to 4.8 to 6" [8 to 12 cm] long, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with dilated, obtuse, shorter than the ovary floral bracts.

"This densely caespitose species is characterized by two or three many-flowered racemes that surpass narrowly elliptical leaves borne by slender ramicauls. The sepals are ovate and glabrous, and the petals are three-veined. On the anterior surface of the lip is a central, suborbicular callus similar to that of Stelis trochophora Luer & R.Escobar, but Stelis culmosa is distinguished best by large clusters of narrowly elliptical leaves, and four- to five-veined, glabrous sepals." Luer 2017

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Harvard Pap. Bot. 22: 86 Luer 2017 Drawing fide

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