Stelis benzingii Luer & Hirtz 2002 SECTION Stelis
Photos/ by © The Ecuagenera Website
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name Benzing’s Stelis [American Botany Professor and co-collector of species]
Flower Size .24” [6 mm]
Found in Esmeraldas province of Ecuador in lowland coastal forests at low elevations as a miniature sized, hot to warm growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect slender ramicauls enveloped by a loose, tubular sheath on the middle third and 2 to 3 others in the lower third and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous,ovate, acute, cuneate below into the indistinct, petiolate base leaf that blooms on an erect, loose, distichous to secund, 6 to 9.6” [ 15 to 24 cm] long including the 2” [5 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul with oblique, tubular, as long as the pedicel floral bracts.
Differs from the widespread S argentata by the larger, non-resupinate flowers with elongated ovaries that are loosely arranged on the inflorescence. The lip margin is sharply tridentate which is similar to S nanegalensis but S nanegalensis has smaller, glabrous flowers.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIV A First Century of Stelis of Ecuador Luer & Hirtz 2002
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIV A First Century of Stelis of EcuadorLuer & Hirtz 2002 drawing fide;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 drawing good;
AOS Bulletin Vol #9 2019 photo fide;
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