Stelis imperalis Luer & R.Escobar 2017 SECTION Humboldtia

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name The Imperial Stelis [refers to the its imperial status among its fellow species]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Cauca department of Colombia at elevations around 3150 meters as a small to medium sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath near the middle and 1 to 2 more below and at the base and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, erect, narrowly elliptical, acute to subacute, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on 1 to 3, from a node below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle 1.2 to 2" [3 to 5 cm] long, rachis 4.8 to 6" [12 to 15 cm] long, erect, strict, sublax, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, shorter to as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying green flowers with a yellow central aparatus.

"This large species is characterized by stout ramicauls that occasionally proliferate a plantlet at the apex with the leaf and one to three inflorescences. The sepals of one collection were green and suffused and dotted with purple. The flowers of a simultaneous collection were totally green. The floral bracts are long and acute; the dorsal sepal is erect and 5-veined; the synsepal is concave with recurved sides and a basal mentum; the petals are thick and 3-veined; and the lip is type A with a large glenion." Luer & Escobar 2017

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Harvard Pap. Bot. 22: 48 Luer & R Escobar 2017 drawing fide

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