Stelis pollerecta Luer & R.Escobar 2016 SECTION Humboldtia

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name The Thumb's Up Stelis [an allusion to the appearance of a column of numerous, erect dorsal sepals]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Huila and Putumayo departments of Colombia at elevations of 2700 to 3050 meters as a miniature to small sized, cold growing, repent epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and 2 to 3 others below and at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer and fall on an erect, arising through a spathe from a node near the abscission layer, peduncle 2 to 2.8" [5 to 7 cm ] long, rachis 6 to 6.8" [15 to 17 cm] long, secund, mostly simutaneosuly many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, acuminate, longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying glabrous flowers with the dorsal sepal purple with a yellow apex, orange petals and an orange lip.

"This species is the king of the elongata clan, those repent species with a distinctive lip that appear to be variations of a common ancestor. Stelis pollerecta is distinguished by large flowers with erect, narrowly obovate dorsal sepals that are aligned in a row in a crowded raceme. The long, narrow dorsal sepal stands above the free but opposed lateral sepals creating a deep bucket-like synsepal; the petals are threeveined with a markedly rough margin, and the long, pointed lip is similar to that of the widely distributed and variable Stelis elongata Kunth.." Luer 2016

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Harvard Pap. Bot. 21: 215 Luer & Escobar 2016 drawing fide

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

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