Stelis cutucuensis Luer & Hirtz 2002 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer

Common Name or Meaning The Cordillera del Cutucu Stelis [refers to where the species is collected]

Flower Size .16" [4 mm]

Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations around 950 to 1100 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cool growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped 2 to 3 sheaths and carrying a single, erect, coriaceous, narrowly obovate, subacute, gradually narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on 3 to 4, erect, peduncle .8" [2 cm] long, with an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, rachis .4 to .8" [1 to 2 cm] long, subflexuous, distantly, simultaneously few flowered inflorescence with acute, almost as long as the ovary floral bract and carrying flowers with microscopically pubescent within, glabrous externally white sepals, purple semi-lunate petals and a purple, subdiscoid lip.

"The species is characterized by the small denely caespitose plant, and each ramicaul has 3 to 4 distantly few flowered racemes that surpass the narrowly obovate leaf. The floral bracts are not inflated, the sepals are broadly ovate, with the laterals oblique, and the petals are semi-lunate and concave. The lip is discoid with the anterior surface very shallowly concave and featureless, while the narrow dorsum has a central rounded callous." Luer 2002

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXIV A First Century of Stelis of Ecuador Luer 2002

Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXIV A First Century of Stelis of Ecuador Luer 2002 Drawing fide

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