Stelis coeliaca Luer & Hirtz 2002 SECTION Humboldtia
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
LATE 
EARLY 
Common Name or Meaning The Cavity Stelis [refers to the synsepal]
Flower Size .16" [4 mm]
Found in Azuay province of Ecuador at elevations around 2800 meters as a small sized, cool to cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with stout, erect ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath above the middle and 2 to 3 thin tubular sheaths at the base and carrying a single, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, abruptly contracted below into the stout, long-petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late winter and early spring on an erect, peduncle 2 to 2.4" [5 to 6 cm] long, with a spathe .8" [2 cm] long, from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, congested, distichous, simultaneously many, progressively many flowered inflorescence with infundibular, oblique, as long as the ovary floral bract and carrying purple, non-resupinate flowers.
"Similar to S purpurea but S coeliaca is distinguished by the smaller habit, with one to 2, several flowered racemes more or less as long as the elliptical-oblong, petiolate base leaves. The sepals are purple, gaping and minutely pubescent, with the margins of the dorsal sepal revolute, The synsepal is shallowly concave with a deep excavation below a convexity beneath the lip. The petals are protuberant with round thickly fleshy apices. The dorsum of the lip is filled with a single, large callus. S coeliaca is related to the much larger S bolivarensis but S coeliaca is distinguished by the more or less flat flowerd with revolute sides of the dorsal sepal, and a deeper excavation of the synsepal." Luer 2009
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXIV A First Century of Stelis of Ecuador Luer 2002;