Stelis galeola Luer & Hirtz 2002 SECTION Humboldtia

TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer

Common Name or Meaning The Helmut Stelis [refers to the concave synsepal]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador on the Cordillera del Condor at elevations around 1200 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by 2 tublar sheaths and carrying a single, erect, coriaceous, smooth beneath with the dorsum minutely verrucose, spathulate, unguiculate, obtuse to rounded, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on an erect then arching to pendent with time, peduncle 1.2" [3 cm] long, from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, rachis 1.2 to 4.8" [3 to 12 cm] long, lax, flexible, flexuous, successively 1 to 2, several flowered inflorescence with infundibular, obtuse, almost as long as the ovary floral bract and carrying non-respupinate in pendent position flowers with glabrous sepals, the dorsal sepal purple thye laterals purple in the outer third, pale green below.

"The species is distinguished by the small, caespitose habit with spathulate leaves that are minutely verrucose on the dorsum. The raceme is flexuous, and flexible the flowers becoming pendent in time as the raceme lengthens. The synsepal is unusually deeply concave. The petals completely enclose the column and lip. The lip is characterized by a tall bar higher than the sides." Luer 2009

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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