Stelis bivalvis Luer 2002 SECTION Humboldtia
Photo by Ecuagenera and their Ecuador Orchid Website
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name The Clam-Like Stelis
Flower Size .025" [5mm]
Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador in montane forests at elevations around 1500 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a loose tubular sheath and another below and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute to acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on an erect, arising through an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, congested, distichous, 2" [5 cm] long including the .8" [2 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously several flowered inflorescence arising from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul and has infundibular, inflated, obtuse, longer than the ovary floral bracts.
This is a miniature plant with an inflorescence that is shorter than the leaf has 2 ranked flowers in a short congested raceme with all the flowers facing one direction and not opening well. It also has a convex transversely kidney-shaped dorsal sepal held over a shallowly concave synsepal of a similar shape. The petals of the flower are thickly reniform and the semilunate lip is short and is 3 times wider than it is long.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIV A First Century of Stelis of Ecuador Luer 2002;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIV A First Century of Stelis of Ecuador Luer 2002 drawing ok;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 drawing/photo ok
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