Stelis pachyphyta Luer & Hirtz 2002 SECTION Stelis Luer 2002
Photo courtesy of Walter Teague.
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer .
Common Name The Broad-Leafed Stelis
Flower Size .2" [5mm]
Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations around 1900 to 2100 meters as a small sized, cool to cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with short, erect, stout ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 large, loose tubualr sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, broadly ovate, abtuse, conduplicate in the lower half, rounded at the sessile base leaf that blooms on a thick, arising through a spathe from the base of the leaf, rigidly erect, very congested, 7.2 to 9.6” [18 to 24 cm] long including the 4 to 6” [10 to 15 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously many flowered, racemose inflorescence with broad, tubular, much shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying dark purple, fleshy, glabrous flowers.
Distinguished by the short, thick ramicauls and large, thickly coriaceous leaves that are conduplicate at the sessile base. From within the fold, the thick, stout, strict peduncle rises to bear a very congested raceme of overlapping, dark purple flowers. The flowers are in 2 rows, both facing the same direction. The floral parts are obtuse and not remarkably distinctive.
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 good;
Mille et Une Mini Orchideees Roguenant 2009 photo fide;
Las Orquideas del Peru Izerskyy & Bezverhov 2011 photo fide
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