Stelis enormis Luer & R.Escobar 2017 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing of by © Carl Luer

EARLY

Common Name The Enormous Stelis

Flower Size .28" [7 mm]

Found in Antioquia department of Colombia at elevations around 1200 meters as a medium sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a loose, tubular sheath on the middle third and another 2 below and at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ovate, subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in early summer on a single, arising through a spathe from a node below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle 4" [10 cm], rachis to 18" [45 cm] long, erect, congested, distichous, mostly simultaneously, many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying flowers with yellow, glabrous sepals and a brown central apparatus.

"This unusually large species is known from only one ramicaul with leaf and inflorescence, the ramicaul having been cut at the base. The ramicaul is clad near the middle by a short sheath; the huge, ovate leaf is petiolate, and with a large, foliaceous spathe; the inflorescence is nearly half a meter long; large, imbricating floral bracts cover the strict rachis; and the sepals are transversely ovate, the dorsal sepal being 5-veined. The type A lip is basically similar to those of several other large species, especially the frequent and variable Stelis grandiflora." Luer 2017

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Harvard Pap. Bot. 22: 37 Luer 2017 drawing fide

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