Stelis encephalota Luer & Hirtz 2004 SUBGENUS Nexipous Duque 2008
Photos by © Lourens Grobler
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Brain-Like Stelis
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations around 1500 meters as a small to medium sized, warm growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramcauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 loose, tubular sheaths and another in the middle third and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, oblong, obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on an erect, arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncel .8 to 1" [2 to 2.5 cm] long, rachis 3.8 to 4" [9.5 to 10 cm] long, subdensely and simultaneously many, many flowered, racemose inflorescence and has oblique, just shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying flowers with creamy white sepals, purple petals and a purple lip.
"Characterized by the stout ramicaul and a crowded raceme shorter than the leaf. The most distinctive flower is composed of a large spherical dorsal sepal with the small lateral sepals recurving from below the rounded entrance to the interior. The small central apparatus is situated on the flower of the sphere. The petals are thickly reniform and the tiny, oblong lip has a central rounded callus." Luer 2007
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 photo fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIX A Third Century of Stelis of Ecuador Systematics of Apoda-Prorepentia Luer 2007 drawing fide
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