Stelis hirtzii Luer 2002 SUBGENUS Dialissa Duque 2008
More open flower - Great Column detail, missing pollina
Photo by © Lourens Grobler
Photo courtesy of Lisa Thoerle
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
to 
Common Name Hirtz's Pleurothallis [German Engineer, Orchid Enthusiast and Orchid Collector in Ecuador current]
Flower Size .12" [3mm]
Found in Pichincha and Imbabura provinces of northwestern Ecuador at elevations of 1400 to 3200 meters in forests as a miniature sized, cool to cold growing, ascending-caespitose epiphyte with ascending, erect, slender ramicauls enveloped basally by 3 to 4, imbricating tubular sheaths and carries a single, apical, coriaceous, erect, narrowly elliptical-obovate, subacute to obtuse leaf that gradually narrows into a long petioleate base. This species blooms on an erect, arising from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, 2." to 4.4" [6 to 11 cm] long, distantly 4 to 5 flowered, racemose inflorescence and having an oblique, acute, acuminate, as long or just shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"Distinguished by an ascending, proliferating habit and a distantly few flowered inflorescence. The obtuse sepals are connate below the middle into a broad sepaline cup and reflexed above the middle. The inner surfaces ae covered with minute papillae. The petals are membraneous, obovate and obtuse. The broadly elliptical lip is flat with slightly incurved margins. At the base a flat, transverse, broadly rounded callus stands erect above the hinge to the short foot of the column." Luer 2002
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXIV A First Century Of New Species of Stelis of Ecuador Part One Luer 2002 drawing fide;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 photo fide
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