Stelis maloi Luer 1981 SECTION Stelis
Photo by © Alexander Hirtz
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
LATE 
Common Name Malo's Stelis [Ecuadorian Collector of species current]
Flower Size .1" [2.5 mm]
Found in Zamora-Chinchipe, Napo, Pichincha, Pastaza, Tungurahua and Morona-Santiago provinces of southern Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations of 1500 to 2000 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with slender, erect, ramicauls enveloped by 2, loose, imbricating tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-obovate, subacute, tridenticulate, gradually narrowing and cuneate into the slender petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late spring through fall on an erect, arising from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, loose, simultaneously 2 to 3, few flowered, 1.2 to 2.8" [3 to 7 cm] long including the .8 to 1.2" [2 to 3 cm] long peduncle, racemose inflorescence with oblique, shorter than the ovary foral bracts and carrying flowers with rose colored sepals, light yellow to light green petals and a yellow to green lip.
"Characerized by a small habit and a loose, few flowered raceme longer than the narrowly ellitpical leaves. The sepals are similar, suborbicular and convex beyond their union into a cup that holds the central apparatus. The petals are thin, suborbucular and concave. The tye "B" lip is thick, oblong, obtuse and concave with a broad, pubescent callus across the base." Luer 2009
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Phytologia 49: 230 Luer 1981
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 photo fide;
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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
