Stelis coelochila Luer 2004 SECTION Labiatae
Drawing by © Carl Luer
LATE 
EARLY
Common Name The Hollow Lip Stelis [Refers to the concave labellum]
Flower Size .24” [6 mm]
Found in Napo and Sucumbios provinces of Ecuador at elevations around 1500 to 2700 meters as a miniature sized, cool to cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3 imbricating tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly linear-obovate, subacute, narrowly cuneate below into the indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on an erect, congested, distichous, 4 to 7.8” [10 to 18 cm] long including the 1.2 to 1.4” [3 to 4 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously several, many flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul with oblique, acute, slightly longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying flowers with cream colored, externally glabrous, long pubescent within sepals, red brown petals amd a red brown lip.
"Characterized by the strict, crowded, many flowered raceme longer than the narrowly obovate leaf. The sepals are pubescent within with the aterals directed forward. The lip is spherical and deeply hollowed out, reminiscent of S angustifolia and S humils ." Luer 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
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