Stelis colossus Luer & R.Escobar 2016 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

LATER

Common Name The Huge Stelis [refers to the plants size]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Valle de Cauca department of Colombia at elevations around 1750 meters as a medium sized, cool growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a loose, tubular sheath in the upper third and 2 others below at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ovate, subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later spring on an erect, arising through a slender spathe from a node below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle 2 to 2.8" [5 to 7 cm] long, rachis 18" [45 cm] long, erect, congested, distichous,successively several, many flowered inflorescence with imbricating, oblique, acute, longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying bright yellow-green flowers.

"The bright yellow-green flowers of this huge species are produced on a tall raceme of large, imbricating floral bracts. Only one loose sheath is present on the upper third of a nearly naked ramicaul, the other sheaths being at the base. The leaf is large and petiolate. The sepals are transversely ovate, obtuse and five-veined, and the type A lip is obtuse with a deep glenion and with three rounded calli on the dorsum. This species is similar to Stelis purdiaei Lindl. with the large leaf borne by a tall ramicaul with a loose sheath above the middle, but instead of a few, slender racemes with small floral bracts, the single raceme is stout with large, imbricating floral bracts." Luer 2016

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Harvard Pap. Bot. 21: 198 Luer & Escobar 2016 drawing fide

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