Stelis rudiculifera Luer 2018 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and Selbyana 32(1,2): 98 Luer & Vasquez 2018

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Wooden Shoe Bearing Stelis [refers to the thick, concave lip]

Flower Size .24" [6 mm]

Found in La Paz department of Bolivia at elevations around 2050 meters as a just miniature sized, cold growing, possibly caespitose epiphyte with erect, relatively stout ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-obovate, obtuse, narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on an erect, arising through a slender spathe from a node near the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle 2.8" [7 cm] long, rachis 2.8 to 6.4" [16 cm] long, erect, strict, congested, distichous, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, with as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying yellow-green flowers .

"This presumably caespitose species is described from a single ramicaul that is broken off near the base without roots, and with a single inflorescence. The plant is distinguished by a congested, distichous, many-flowered raceme that far exceeds the leaf. The floral bracts are longer than the nearly circular sepals, and the petals are three-veined with a thick transverse carina. The lip is relatively long, thick and concave with the obtuse tip incurved. Vegetatively, Stelis rudiculifera Luer is similar to S. rutrum Luer & R.Vásquez, from which it is distinguished by the thick, spoon-shaped lip." Luer & Vasquez 2018

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Phytologia 49: 236 Luer & Vasquez 1981; Selbyana 32(1,2): 98 Luer & Vasquez 2018

Selbyana 32(1,2): 155 Luer & Vasquez 2018 Drawing fide;

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