Stelis digitifera Luer & R. Escobar 2016 SECTION Humboldtia

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Finger Bearing Stelis [refers to the elongate dorsal sepal]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Antioquia department of Colombia at elevations around 1850 meters as a miniature sized, cool growing, densely caespitose terrestrial or epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and 2 others below and at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical , acute, narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late winter and early spring on 1 to 2, from a node above the abscission layer, peduncle less tha 2.4 to 2.8" [6 to 7 cm], rachis to 1.6 to 2" [10 to 17 cm] long, erect, sublax, distichous, mostly simultaneously, many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, acuminate, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying nutant flowers with glabrous, purple sepals and a yellow central apparatus.

"This species is remarkable for an oblong dorsal sepal far longer than little, rounded lateral sepals. The dorsal sepal is held horizontally in the nutant flower. The lateral sepals are partially connate and more or less antrorse, suggesting an incomplete synsepal. The petals are single-veined. The apex of the triangular lip is acute." Luer 2016

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Harvard Pap. Bot. 21: 67 Luer & Escobar 2016 drawing fide

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