Stelis celesticola Luer & Hirtz 2013 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name or Meaning The Heaven Dwelling Stelis [refers to the high elevation of the plants habitat]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Pichincha province of Ecuador at elevations around 3200 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, repent epiphyte with stout, ascending to erect ramicauls enveloped by a loose, tubular sheath below the middle and another one at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on an erect, arising from a fugaceous spathe from within the sheath, peduncle 2" [5 cm] long, 6.8" [17 cm] long overall, slender, strict, secund, about half simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with acute, oblique much shorter than the pedicel floral bracts and carrying flowers with purple-brown sepals, yellow-green petals and a green lip.

"This medium sized species of SECTION Stelis is distinguished by a repent habit, with a distance of one to two centimeters between ramicauls; and a long raceme bearing small flowers that do not expand widely, with the lateral sepals antrorse and a type C lip with an elevated callus descending from the bar." Luer 2013

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Harvard Papers in Botany, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 173 to 196 MISCELLANEOUS NEW SPECIES IN THE PLEUROTHALLIDINAE (ORCHIDACEAE) Carlyle A. Luer & Lisa Thoerle 2013 drawing fide;

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