Stelis verruculosa Luer & R.Escobar 2017 SECTION Stelis

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

Common Name The Minutely Verrucose Stelis [referring to the minutely verrucose, thickened margins of the petals and lip as well as the pedunculate stigmatic lobes]

Flower Size .16" [4 mm]

Found in Santander department of Colombia at elevations around 2700 meters as a mini-miniature to miniature sized, cold growing, repent epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath from below the middle and another 1 to 2 at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a single, erect, arising through a spathe from below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle .4 to .8" [1 to cm] long, rachis 2 to 3.2" [5 to 8 cm] long, erect, loose, flexuous, successively fewer than 10-flowered, many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts and carrying purple flowers.

"This small, repent species forms tangled clusters; a delicate, flexuous, successively flowered raceme exceeds the leaves; and the purple sepals are covered with a fine, white pubescence. The rounded, single-veined petals are proportionately large with a thickened, verrucose margin. The lip is deep and short with a broad, similarly verrucose margin. The stigmatic lobes are pedunculate and microscopically verrucose." Luer 2017

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

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

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