Stelis pollex Luer & Hirtz 2009 SECTION Humboldtia

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Thumb Like Stelis [refers to the dorsal sepal]

Flower Size .1" [2.5 mm]

Found in Pichincha province of Ecuador at elevations around 2600 meters as a small sized, cold growing, long-repent epiphyte with ascending, slender ramicauls enveloped 2 ribbed, tubular sheaths with minutely papillose margins and carrying a single, apical, suberect to subpendent, coriaceous, ovate, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on a pendent, arising from near the apex of the ramicaul sublax, distichous, to 1.6 to 2.4" [4 to 6 cm] long including the broadly flattened, .8" [2 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously several flowered inflorescence with broadly ovate, acute, longer than the ovary floral bracts.

Similar to S piperina but it has elliptical, subacute to obtuse leaves and a concave synsepal that is much deeper than this species which also has erect, oversized dorsal sepals.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* 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;

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