Stelis ephippium Luer & R.Escobar 2017 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing of by © Carl Luer

LATER

Common Name The Saddle Shaped Stelis [refers to the lip]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Norte de Santander and Santander departments of Colombia at elevations around 2100 to 2500 meters as a miniature to small sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a loose, tubular sheath below the middle and another 2 below and at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in later spring on a single, arising through a spathe from a node below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle 2.8 to 3.2" [7 to 8 cm], rachis to 8 to 10" [20 to 25 cm] long, erect, congested, distichous, mostly simultaneously, many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, as long as to longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying flowers with dark purple, glabrous sepals and a yellow central apparatus.

"This handsome species is characterized by rather large, elliptical leaves with shorter ramicauls and a long, multiflowered raceme with a proportionately small spathe. The sepals are unequal and dark purple, the dorsal sepal being ovate, acute and 3-veined, or incompletely 5-veined, with the lateral sepals being broadly ovate and obtuse. The lip is a modified type A with an erect, ovoid callus, with a superficial glenion on the anterior surface, filling the middle of the lip. The large callus suggests a saddle, the callus rising in the center, being the horn. A collection cultivated by Tsubota varies with a wider leaf, a proportionately longer ramicaul, and a lip with a cleft bar replacing the protruding, solid callus, the horn of the saddle." Luer 2017

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Harvard Pap. Bot. 22: 39 Luer 2017 drawing fide

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