Stelis coarctaca Luer 2009 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

EARLY

Common Name The Shortened Stelis [Refers to length of the ramicauls]

Flower Size .12” [3 mm]

Found in Zamora Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations around 1650 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, very short, proportionately stout ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, narrowing below into the shortly to subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in the early summer on an erect, arising near the base of the ramicaul, 1.8” [4.5 cm] long including the .6 to 1” [2.5 cm] long peduncle, subcongested, secund, mostly simultaneously several flowered inflorescence with infundibular, oblique, acute, as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying yellow flowers.

Similar to the Venezuelan S coriifolia in habit but differs in the flowers significantly. The ramicaul of S coarctaca is very short, reduced to [.04" [1 mm] long, the eret, overlapping leaves are thickly elliptical and are far surpassed by the tiny flowered raceme. The sepals are three veined, deeply connate and broadly obtuse, the petals are single veined and transversely ovate with a thickened margin and the subquadrate lip is obtuse witha pubescent callus on the dorsum." Luer 2009

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador Part IV Luer 2009

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador Part IV Luer 2009drawing fide;

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