Stelis aguirreae Luer & Sijm 2012 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

LATER

Common Name Aguirre's Stelis [Lidia Aguirre Ecuadorian collector of the type current]

Flower Size .8" [2 cm] wide

Found in Pinchincha province of Ecuador at elevations around 655 meters as a medium sized, warm growing, caespitose to shortly repent epiphyte with stout, erect ramicauls enveloped by a loose, inflated sheath from near the middle and a tubular sheath below and carrying a single, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the conduplicate, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later spring on a terete , erect, arising from the base of the petiole, through a spathe, peduncle 4" [10 cm] long, rachis 8.8" [22 cm] long, successively few to many, many flowered inflorescence with longer than the pedicel floral bracts and carrying flowers with light yellow green minutely sparsely pubescent sepals faintly suffused with brown, yellow green, glabrous petals and a yellow green lip.

"Among the many species of Stelis section Stelis, the flowers of Stelis aguirreae from Ecuador are some of the largest known, with sepals nine to ten millimeters long and wide with nine or more veins. The plant is large with thick, robust ramicauls and an elliptical leaf that is surpassed by a successively flowered raceme with a few to several immense flowers open simultaneously. They are rivaled in size by some flowers of clones of the widely distributed Stelis superbiens Lindl., which is distinguished by an apiculate margin of the lip, instead of minutely notched as in S. aguirreae." Luer 2012

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Harvard Papers in Botany, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 333 to 368 MISCELLANEOUS NEW SPECIES IN THE PLEUROTHALLIDINAE (ORCHIDACEAE) Carlyle A. Luer 2012 drawing fide

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