Stelis exigua Luer & Hirtz 2002 SECTION Labiatae

TYPE drawing by Carl Luer

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Small Stelis [refers to the plant habit and flowers]

Flower Size .04" [1 mm]

Found in Loja province of Ecuador at elevations around 2600 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute to obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on an erect, peduncle .4" [1 cm] long, from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, rachis 1.2" [3 cm] long, flexuous, congested, distichous, successively 2 to 3, many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying minute, purple flowers with fleshy, glabrous sepals, thin, suborbicular, shallowly concave petals and a thickly subovate lip.

"This tiny species is characterized by the caespitose habit, the elliptical leaves somewhat longer than the ramicauls and an erect, congesteddddddddd, distichous raceme of minute, successive flowers. The sepals are ovate with a single, vein, The dorsal sepal is larger than the laterals that are held forward. The petals are suborbicular, thin and single veined, The lip is obovoid and shallowly concave at the obtuse apex." Luer 2002

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIV A First Century of Stelis of Ecuador Luer 2002

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIV A First Century of Stelis of Ecuador Luer 2002 Drawing fide

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