Stelis atrocaerulea Luer 2007 SECTION Stelis

Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name The Dark Blue Stelis

Flower Size .16” [4 mm]

Found in Bolivar, Carchi, Imbabura and Azuay provinces of Ecuador at elevations around 2900 to 3400 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with fasiculated, slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 3 to 4 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on an erect, distichous, congested, 4 to 6” [10 to 15 cm] long including the .8 to 1.6" [2 to 4 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneous many flowered inflorescence arising from below the apex of the ramicaul with oblique, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts.

"Similar to S atra but differs in the shiny dark purple externally sepals with dark blue or a silvery color inside and the petals are single veined and the lip is type B. S pusilla in the fact that it can cover a roadbank in the same fashion and differs in the sepals of

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIX A thrid Century of Stelis of Ecuador Systematics of Apoda-Proprepentia Luer 2007 Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIX A thrid Century of Stelis of Ecuador Systematics of Apoda-Proprepentia Luer 2007 drawing fide;

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