Stelis felix Luer & R.Escobar 2018 SECTION Stelis

Drawings by Carl Luer

Common Name The Happy Stelis ["If this species was capable of emotions, it would be happy to have been found" Luer 2018]

Flower Size .24" [6 mm]

Found in Colombia without collection data as a small sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on 2 to 3, erect, peduncle 1.6 to 2" [4 to 5 cm] long, arising through a spathe from a node below the apex of the ramicaul, rachis 6 to 8" [15 to 20 cm] long, lax, subflexuous, successively few, 10 to 15 flowered inflorescence with oblique, much shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying purple flowers.

"This handsome species, unfortunately without collection data, is distinguished by two or three tall, loosely flowered, subflexuous racemes of rather large, widely expanded, glabrous, dark purple flowers. The petals are proportionately large, thick and three-veined. The lip is type C, as in Stelis argentata Lindl., with a similar, minute apiculum." Luer 2018

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

Harvard Pap. Bot. 23: 28 Luer & Escobar 2018 Drawing fide

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