Stelis velivolva Luer & Hirtz 2002 SECTION Humboldtia

TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer

Common Name or Meaning The Sail Boat Stelis [refers tothe boat shaped synsepal]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations around 2750 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a close tublar sheath in the middle third and another 1 to 2 others at the base and carrying a single, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, subacute to acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on an erect, peduncle .8" to 1.2" [2 to 3 cm] long, arising through a spathe .24 to .28" [6 to 7 mm] long, with an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, rachis 2 to 2.4" [5 to 6 cm] long, subcongested, distichous, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, inflated, almost as long as the ovary floral bract and carrying dark purple red flowers with glabrous externally, microscopically pubescent within sepals, suborbicular, broadly semi-lunate petals and a thickly subovoid lip.

"Similar to S purpurea but S velivolva is distinguished by the small habit with a long, loose, tubular sheath covering the ramicaul, The raceme slightly exceeds the small, elliptical, leaves. The floral parts are deep purple with the dorsal sepal and synsepal broadly ovate. The petals are nearly orbicular with a slight protrusion of the inner margin of the flattened margin. The lip is ovoid and concave anteriorly above a thickened apex." Luer 2002

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXIV Luer 2002 Drawing fide;

*Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXIV Luer 2002

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