Stelis mundula Luer & Hirtz 2004 SECTION Stelis

Drawing by © Carl Luer

EARLY

Common Name The Neat Stelis [refers to the qualities of the inflorescence]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Morona-Santiago and Zamora-Chinchipe provinces of Ecuador at elevations around 1000 to 1600 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing,densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2, loose, tubular sheaths and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, subacute, narrowly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring and early summer on an erect, arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, congested, 3.6 to 4.4" [9 to 11 cm] long including the 1.2 to 1.6" [3 to 4 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously several flowered inflorescence with infundibular, oblique, acute, as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying green, glabrous flowers. " Disitnguished by the ramicaul clad in loose, tubulara sheaths is shorter than the narrowly elliptical leaf. The crowded raceme of medium sized flowers surpasses the leaf about half the length. The sepals are glabrous, broadly ovate and 3 veined. The semi-lunate petals are large, overlapping above the column witha thick, curved margin. The lip is small, triangular and obtuse with three calli on the dorsum." Luer 2004

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIV Pleurothallis subgenus Acianthera A Second Century of Stelis of Ecuador Epibator Ophidion Zootrophion Luer 2004

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIV Pleurothallis subgenus Acianthera A Second Century of Stelis of Ecuador Epibator Ophidion Zootrophion Luer 2004 drawing fide

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