Stelis ciliolata Luer & Dalström 2004 SUBGENUS Stelis Duque 2008
Photo by © Marty and Dartfrog Forum
Photo courtesy of Patricia Harding
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name The Cilia Covered Stelis
Flower Size .24" [6 mm]
Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations around 1500 to 2400 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool to cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by 2 tubular sheaths and carrying a singler apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on 1 to 3, arising through an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, erect to suberect, 2 to 4.4" [5 to 11 cm] long, subdense, distichous, mostly simultaneously several flowered inflorescence with oblique, dilated, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying flowers with purple to creamy white sepals suffused with rose centrally.
" Superficially similar to S argentata but characterized by broad, thickly coriaceous leaves with shorter stout ramicauls and shorter racemes, Large floral bracts enclose t oshort pedicels and ovaries. The sepals are broadly ovate with thickened ciiate margins, The margin of the lip is similary apiculate and the dorsum is flat." Luer 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 photo fide;
AOS Bulletin Vol 81 #12 2012 photo fide;
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