Stelis lanata Lindl. 1859 SECTION Stelis
Photos/Drawing by © S Manning/Carl Luer
Common Name The Wooly Stelis [refers to the pubescence]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Pichincha, Cotopaxi, Tungurahua and Morona-Santiago provinces of central Ecuador and La Paz department of Bolivia at elevations around 2500 to 3200 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing, ascending-caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender, fasciculate ramicauls enveloped by a close tubular sheath on the middle third and another 1 to 2 at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute to subacute, narrowly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer, fall and winter on 1 to 3, erect, arising through a spathe below the apex of the ramicaul, 3.2 to 6" [8 to 15 cm] long including the .8 to 1.6" [2 to 4 cm] long peduncle, erect, congested, distichous, mostly simultaneously, many flowered inflorescence with oblique, infundibular, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts.
S lanata has been compared to S trichoglottis by Luer.
"This uncommon species is widely distributed in the Andes. The illustration in Luer (2009), was made from a poor flower, but the illustration provided herein is faithful, agreeing with a flower from the holotype. Stelis lanata Lindl. is distinguished by a crowded raceme longer than a narrow leaf; large floral bracts; and a lip with a cleft bar similar to that of S. campanulifera Lindl., but the sepals of S. lanata are densely long-pubescent within. From S. euspatha Rchb.f., S. lanata also differs with three-veined petals that are concave below a transverse carina." Luer & Vasquez 2018
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
*Fol. Orchid. 8: 13 Lindley 1859
Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing fide;
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 2009 drawing fide;
Selbyana 32(1,2): 65 Luer & Vasquez 2018
Selbyana 32(1,2): 145 Luer & Vasquez 2018 Drawing fide
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