Stelis pilulosa Luer, Thoerle & F.Werner 2011 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

LATE

Common Name The Pellet Stelis [refers to the BB shaped flowers]

Flower Size .04" [1 mm]

Found in Loja province of Ecuador at elevations around 400 to 1400 meters as a mini-miniature sized, hot to cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with suberect, stout ramicauls with a bend upward near the emmergence of the inflorescence and enveloped by 2 close, tubular sheaths and another 1 to 2 below and at the base and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, fleshy, suberect, elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late spring on a single, erect, arising through a spathe from a node on the ramicaul, peduncle 4" [10] long, rachis erect, 4" [10 cm] long, subdense, strict, mostly simultaneosuly many flowered inflorescence with shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying purple, minute flowers.

"distinguished vegetatively by suberect ramicauls that bend upward below the junction of the fleshy leaves. Even more distinctive are the minute, subsphercal flwoers that are borne along a long, strict raceme. The flwoers are amongst the smallest in the genus with sepals less than .04" [1 mm] long,and broad. Thesepals are connivent above the connation of the lower halves, the 3 veined petals and type "A" lip are not distinctive other than their minute size." Luer, Thoerle and Werner 2011

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Harvard Papers in Botany Vol 16 No 2: 353 Luer, Thoerle and Werner 2011 drawing fide;

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