Stelis ebenea Luer & Hirtz 2012 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

EARLY

Common Name The Ebony-Like Stelis [refers to the flower color]

Flower Size .06" [1.5 mm] wide

Found in Bolivar province of Ecuador at elevations around 1200 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing caespitose epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 2 thin, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, erect, thickly coriaceous, broadly elliptical, obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the early summer on an erect, arising from below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle filiform, .4 to .8" [1 to 2 cm] long, 1.2" [3 to 4 cm] long overall, slightly flexuous, simultaneously 6 to 8 flowered inflorescence with shorter to as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying flowers with black, densely white pubescent within, red purple, glabrous petals and a dark purple glabrous lip.

"This tiny species is similar to Stelis sororcula Luer & Hirtz, but the sepals are transversely ovate and black with a short, white pubescence. The petals and lip are similar. The dark purplish petals and lip do not differ remarkably from a common pattern, with thickened, round-margined, three-veined petals and a more or less subquadrate lip with a thickened, rounded apex." Luer 2012

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Harvard Papers in Botany, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 333 to 368 2012 MISCELLANEOUS NEW SPECIES IN THE PLEUROTHALLIDINAE (ORCHIDACEAE) Carlyle A. Luer drawing fide

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