Stelis chaetostoma Luer & Hirtz 2013 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

EARLY

Common Name or Meaning The Hairy Mouth Stelis [refers to the interior of the sepaline cup]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Bolivar province of Ecuador at elevations around 2500 meters as a small to medium sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with stout, erect ramicauls enveloped by a close, tubular sheath below the middle and 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the early summer on 2, erect, arising from a node .2" [5 mm] below the apex of the ramicaul through a slender spathe, peduncle .4 to .8" [1 to 2 cm] long, 4 to 6.4" [10 to 16 cm] long overall, strict, congested, distichous, successively few, many flowered inflorescence with as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying yellow, not expanded flowers.

"This tall, strong, caespitose species of SECTION Stelis is distinguished by a pair of crowded, distichous racemes of small, yellow, half-closed flowers with a coarse, white, pubescence filling the interior. The petals are broadly triangular, overlapping the sides of the column and corners of the lip. The stigmatic lobes are round and in apposition below the stigma. The lip, probably a variation of type A, is rounded at the apex and concave below a cleft 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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