Stelis apiculifera Luer & Hirtz 2002 SECTION Stelis
Photo/Drawing by © S Manning/Carl Luer
EARLY 
Common Name The Apiculum Bearing Stelis [refers to the lip]
Flower Size .04” [1 mm]
Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations around 950 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm growing, caespitose epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly obovate, subacute, gradually narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the earl summer on an erect, distichous, subcongested, 1.2 to 2.2” [3 to 5.5 cm] long including the .8 to 1” [2 to 2.5 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneous few flowered inflorescence from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul with oblique, acutejust shorter than the ovary floral bracts.
"Allied to S guianensis but characterized by the small caespitose habit, and a subcongested, several flowered raceme that surpasses the narrowly obovate leaf. The sepals are broadly ovate[ proportionally broader than in S Guianensis] obtuse ad cellular papillose. The petals are concave with a single vein. The type C lip is thickly discoid with a tiny sharp apiculum in the center of a rounded, apical margin.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIX A Third Century of Stelis Systematics of Apoda-prorepentia Luer 2007 drawing not = S guianensis - do not use;
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 in comments of Stelis guianensis
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador Part IV Luer 2009 drawing fide;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
