Stelis complanata Luer & F.Werner 2009 SECTION Stelis

Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name The Compressed Stelis [refers to the inflorescence]

Flower Size .12” [3 mm]

Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations of 2010 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute, narrowly cuneate below into the long-petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on slender, erect, loose, disitchous, slightly flexuous, to 12” [to 30 cm] long including the 8” [20 cm] long, compressed, slender peduncle, simultaneously several, many flowered inflorescence arising through a slender spathe from below the apex of the ramicaul with oblique, acute, as long as the pedicel floral bracts and carrying flowers with pale lilac, expanded sepals, lilac petals and a lilac lip.

"Similar to Stelis platystachya but differs in the compressed rachis whichis thin and narrow in S complanata and broader in S platystachya. The sepals are also narrower but densely long-villous, the petals are round, concave and single veined and the bar of the lip is thick and rounded with a densely villous callus on the dorsum." Luer 2009

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador Part IV Luer 2009 ;

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador Part IV Luer 2009 drawing fide;

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------