Stelis pilicrepa Luer & R.Escobar 2017 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name The Ball Player Stelis [refers to the suborbicular callus that fills the dorsum of the lip]

Flower Size .24" [6 mm]

Found in Norte de Santander department of Colombia at elevations around 2900 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and 1 to 2, others below and at the base and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a single, arising through a spathe from a node below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle .4 to .6" [1 to 1.5 cm] long, rachis erect, congested, in two opposite rows, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, as long as the ovary flora bracts and carrying purple, glabrous flowers.

"This caespitose species is characterized by a congested raceme shorter than elliptical leaves. The sepals are ovate and glabrous, and the petals are thick and 3-veined. The lip is subquadrate with a rounded apex, and the anterior surface barely, if all, concave. Like a ball, a suborbicular callus lies half buried on the dorsum. This species is similar to Stelis coccidifera , but differs with a single raceme; twice larger flowers; and a large, hemispherical callus that fills the dorsum of the lip" Luer 2017

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Harvard Papers in Botany Vol. 22, No. 1 :55 Luer & Escobar 2017 drawing fide;

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