Stelis perexigua Luer & Hirtz 2012 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

EARLY

Common Name The Very Little Stelis [refers to the flowers]

Flower Size .1" [2.5 mm] wide

Found in Bolivar province of Ecuador at elevations around 1000 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 2 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute, narrowing below into the indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the early summer on an erect, arising from below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle .4" [1 cm] long, 8" [3.5 to 4.5 cm] long overall, strict, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying flowers with purple externally, greenish within, minutely papilose pubescent sepals, rose with a darker margin, glabrous petals and a white with purple margins lip.

"This little species of SECTION Stelis is distinguished by narrowly elliptical leaves and a longer, simultaneously many-flowered raceme of tiny flowers. The sepals are broadly obtuse, the petals are rhombic with acute lateral angles and single-veined. The apex of lip is obtuse with the tip acuminate, and with a densely pubescent callus on the dorsum." Luer 2012

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Harvard Papers in Botany, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 333 to 368 MISCELLANEOUS NEW SPECIES IN THE PLEUROTHALLIDINAE (ORCHIDACEAE) Carlyle A. Luer 2012 drawing fide

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------