Stelis congesta Luer & Hirtz 2002 SECTION Stelis
Photos by Ecuagenera and their Ecuador Orchid Website
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and Alexander Hirtz
Common Name The Congested Stelis [refers to the densely flowered inflorescence]
Flower Size .14" [4mm]
Found in Morona-Santiago province of southern Ecuador at elevations around 1900 meters as a small sized, cool growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute to subacute, narrowly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on an erect, congested, 1.6 to 2 .4" [4 to 6 cm] long including the .4 to .8" [1 to 2 cm] long peduncle, crowded, successively several to many, densely many flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe from a annulus below the apex of the ramicaul with infundibular, oblique, acute, as long as the ovary floral bracts carrying purple flowers.
"Distinguished by the caespitose habit with narrrowly elliptic leaves borne by slightly longer ramicauls and one to three inflorescence shorter than the leaves. The raceme is slowly successively flowering, becoming more congested above with the flowers overlapping. The sepals are expanded and obtuse, the petals are transversely ovate and the lip is nearly flat or barely convex anteriorly with a small, superficial glenion." Luer 2002
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIV A First century of the Stelis of Ecuador Luer 2002
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIV A First century of the Stelis of Ecuador Luer 2002 drawing good
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