Stelis bovilinguis Luer & Hirtz 2004 SECTION Nexipous

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

LATE

Common Name The Cow Tongued Stelis [refers to the lip]

Flower Size .12” [3 mm]

Found in Pastaza province of Ecuador at elevations around 2400 meters as a small sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle third and 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ellipitical, subacute to obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late spring and summer on an erect, arising through a spathe near the apex of the ramicaul, secund, congested, 4.4” [ 11 cm] long including the .4” [1 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously several flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, as long as to longer than the ovary floral bracts.

"The relatively large flowers alternatingly face the same direction and overlap. The sepals are triangular and acute, the laterals nearly free and opposite 180 degrees. The petals are small and trnasverse, The lip is large and trilobed with the middle libe curved upward like the tongue of a cow in frot of the column, the lateral lobes of the lip are rounded and expanded on either side." Luer 2004

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Luer 2004

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Luer 2004 drawing fide;

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