Stelis bicolor Luer & Hirtz 2004 SECTION Stelis
Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Website
Common Name The Two Colored Stelis
Flower Size .16” [4 mm]
Found in Loja province of Ecuador in semi-arid mountains at elevations around 3700 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a 2 loose, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, subacute to obtuse, narrowly cuneate below into the subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on an erect, strict, distichous, 5.2 to 6.8” [13 to 17 cm] long including the 1.2 to 2.4” [3 to 6 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneoulsy, many flowered inflorescence arising through a slender spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul with inflated, acute, oblique, much longer than the ovary floral bracts.
"Characterized by short ramcauls, twice longer, subsessile elliptical leaves and a much longer, congested inflorescence with dark yellow sepals and purple petals and lip. The sepals are broadly ovate and obtuse, the petals are shallowly rounded and the lip is concave anteriorly with a low, broad apiculum." Luer 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
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