Stelis prodigiosa Luer & R.Escobar 2017 SECTION Humboldtia

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name The Extraordinary Stelis [refers to the lip]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Tolima departments of Colombia at elevations of 2700 to 2600 meters as a small sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath above the middle and 2 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 spring on a 3 to 5, erect, arising through a spathe from a node below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle 2.4 to 3.2" [6 to 8 cm] long, rachis 6 to 10" [15 to 25 cm] long, secund, lax, mostly simutaneosuly many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying glabrous flowers with the dorsal sepal purple the laterals yellow and a dark purple central apparatus.

"This species is distinguished by slender ramicauls and long-petiolate leaves surpassed by secund racemes of relatively large, bilabiate flowers with a 7-veined dorsal sepal. The petals are large and thick while the lip is proportionately small. The bar of the lip is tall centrally with a round, central callus above the minutely apiculate apical margin.." Luer 2016

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Harvard Pap. Bot. 22: 56 Luer & Escobar 2017 drawing fide

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