Stelis divergens Luer & R.Escobar 2017 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

LATER

Common Name The Two of a Kind Stelis [refers to its similarity to Stelis baudoënsis]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Choco' department of Colombia at elevations around 400 meters as a miniature sized, hot growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and 1 to 2 others below and at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later spring on a single, arising through a slender spathe from a node below the abscission layer, peduncle .8" [2 cm], rachis to 5.2 to 5.6" [9 to 16 cm] long, erect, strict, subcongested, distichous, mostly simultaneously, many flowered inflorescence with tubular, obtuse, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts and carrying yellow flowers.

"This miniature sized, densely caespitose species occurs at a low altitude in western, coastal Colombia. It is characterized by a ramicaul shorter than an acute, narrowly elliptical leaf surpassed by a many-flowered raceme. The sepals are pubescent with markedly recurved sides, and the petals are single-veined. The lip is remarkable with a shallow, longitudinal cleft that divides the dorsum from the base, then forward across the divided bar, and descending as a wide glenion to the apex. Vegetatively, the plant of this collection (de Wilde 4500) is similar to Stelis baudoënsis both having been collected in Baudo and cultivated near Pereira, but the petals and lip differ drastically. Whether they represent a taxon with extremely variable petals and lip, or a hybrid, is impossible to say without examination of many more specimens, an improbability at this time. In order to identify one from the other, they are given names." Luer 2017

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Harvard Pap. Bot. 22: 36 Luer & Escobar 2017 drawing fide

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