Stelis cryptopetala Luer & Hirtz 2007 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name The Hidden Petal Stelis [refers to the out of sight petals]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations around 3000 meters as a miniature to small sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and 2 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-oblong, subacute to rounded, narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter an erect, secund, congested, 4 to 5.2" [10 to 13 cm] long, including the .6" [1.5 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul and has oblique, tubular, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying light yellow flowers.

Certainly similar to S schomburgkii and often cited [even by Luer] as a synonym but they differ enough to be considered separate by Kew.

"Distinguished by slender ramicauls with elliptic-oblong leaves that are surpassed by a similar, lender, congested, secund raceme of numerous, minute flowers. The petals are short and membraneous and held against the column below the middle. The lip is type "B" with an apiculum." Luer 2007

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIX Luer 2007

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIX Luer 2007 drawing fide;

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