Pleurothallis stelidiopsis Luer 1981 SUBGENUS Crocodeilanthe [Rchb.f & Warsc.]Luer 1986
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
Common Name The Stelis-Like Pleurothallis
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Loja province of Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations around 2250 meters as a miniature to small sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with slender, ascending to erect ramicauls enveloped by a loose, tubular sheath below the middle 2 to 3 imbricating others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute, narrowly cuneate below into the slender petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a congested, secund, arising through a slender spathe from an annulus below the abscission layer, 2.8 to 7.2" [7 to 18 cm] long including the 1.2" [3 cm] long, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with an infundibular, shorter than the ovary floral bract that envelopes the pedicel.
"Superficially resembles a Stelis. The bases of the slender ramicauls are densely fasciculate with imbricating sheaths. The slender, many flowered raceme exceeds the narrow leaf. The sepals of the tiny flowers are obtuse and concave. The petals are broad and single veined and the ovoid lip is concave within a low, U shaped callus that runs around the apex just within the margin. Closely related to P achypus which is distinguished by a subquadrate lip with a pair od intrmarginal calli below the apex." Luer 1998
Synonyms Crocodeilanthe stelidiopsis (Luer) Luer 2004; Stelis stelidiopsis (Luer) Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Phytologia 49 3:218 Luer 1981;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol III Systematics of Pleurothallis Luer 1986;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Systematics of Pleurothallis SUBGEN Crocodeilanthe, Rhynchopera and Talpinaria Luer 1998 drawing fide;
Lindleyana Vol 16 No 4:267 Pridgeon & M.W.Chase 2001 as Stelis stelidopsis;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Pleurothallis subgenus Acianthera and Three Allied subgenera, A Second Century of new Species of Stelis of Ecuador, Epibator, Ophidion and Zootrophion Luer 2004 as Crocodeilanthe stelidopsis
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