Stelis buxiflora Luer & Hirtz 2004 SECTION Labiatae
Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Box-Like Flower Stelis [refers to the flower shape]
Flower Size .12” [3 mm]
Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations of 2500 to 2750 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-ovate, subacute to acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on 1 to 3, erect, congested, distichous, 3.2” [13 to 18 cm] long including the 2” [5 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul and has oblique, acute, as long as the ovary floral bracts.
Characterized by one to three congested, multiflowered racemes that exceed the elliptical leaf, small cupped flowers with broad, concave, partially connate lateral sepals that converge to form a synsepal, with the dorsal sepal curving forward like a lip, broad, concave petals and an obtuse, triangular lip with a forked callus on the bar." Luer 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------