Stelis capitata Luer & Hirtz 2004 SECTION Stelis

Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Website

Common Name The Capitate Stelis [refers to the pubescence]

Flower Size .08” [2 mm]

Found in Morona-Santiago province of , densely caespitose Ecuador at elevations around 1500 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, subacute to acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on an erect, lax, subflexuous, 2” [5 cm] long including the .6” to .8” [1.5 to 2 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously several to many flowered inflorescence arising from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul with oblique, acute, as long as the pedicel floral bracts.

" S caesariata is superficially similar Stelis capitata Luer & Hirtz, but S caesariata differs in the slightly larger flowers with thick, subcircular petals and a minute lip with a proportionately large, shallow glenion." Luer 2012

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Pleurothallis Subgenus Acianthera A Second Century of Stelis of Ecuador Epibator Ophidion Zootrophion Luer 2004

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Pleurothallis Subgenus Acianthera A Second Century of Stelis of Ecuador Epibator Ophidion Zootrophion Luer 2004drawing fide;

Harvard Papers in Botany, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 333 to 368 MISCELLANEOUS NEW SPECIES IN THE PLEUROTHALLIDINAE (ORCHIDACEAE) Carlyle A. Luer 2012

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