Stelis variola Luer & R.Escobar 2017 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and Harvard Pap. Bot. 22: 110 Luer 2017

EARLY

Common Name The Smallpox Stelis [referring to the unidentified spotty substance seen on the sepals]

Flower Size .16" [4 mm]

Found in Norte de Santander department of Colombia at elevations around 2600 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath from below the middle and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a single, erect, arising through a spathe from a node below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle .8" [2 cm] long, rachis 4" [10 cm] long, erect, strict, subflexuous, distichous, successively 4 to 5, several flowered inflorescence with inflated, obique, as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying light yellow flowers.

"This medium-sized, caespitose species is another distinguished by a minute, irregular substance scattered within the sepals. The small flowers are borne in a distichous raceme about as long as obtuse leaves; the sepals are elliptical and free to near the base; and the petals are semilunate and concave with a more or less nodular margin. The tiny lip is type A with a thick, retuse bar." Luer 2017

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Harvard Pap. Bot. 22: 110 Luer 2017 Drawing fide

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