Stelis carchica Luer & Hirtz 2007 SECTION Stelis
Drawing by © Carl
LATE 
EARLY
Common Name The Carchi Stelis [refers to the orchids general location]
Flower Size .16” [4 mm]
Found in Carchi province of Ecuador at elevations around 3300 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing, repent-ascending epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath from below the middle and another above the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical-oblong, obtuse, contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on an erect, congested, distichous, to 1.6” [to 4 cm] long including the peduncle, mostly simultaneously several flowered, flowering to the base inflorescence arising through a spathe at the apex of the ramicaul with oblique, acute, just shorter than the ovary floral bracts.
"Distinguished by the repent habit with a thick ascending rhizome. The ramicauls are slender and a little longer than the narrowly oblong, obtuse leaves. A single, multi-flowered raceme reaches only half way to the tip. The petals are broadly ovate and three veined, while the petals are round and single veined. The lip is concave anteriorly with an ill defined apiculum on the margin." Luer 2007
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIX A Third Century of Stelis Systematics of Apora-Prorepentia Luer 2007 drawing fide;
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