Stelis exilis Luer & Hirtz 2002 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer

Common Name or Meaning The Slender Stelis [refers to the plant habit]

Flower Size .16" [4 mm]

Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations around 1450 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath and another at the base and carrying a single, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptic, acute, narrowly cuneate below into the indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on an erect to bending, peduncle 4 to 4.4" [10 to 11 cm] long, rachis 2 to 7.8" [5 to 19 cm] long, lax, distichous, flexuous, successively 2 to 3, many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, as long as the ovary floral bract and carrying flowers with purple, glabrous externally, long pubescent within sepals, purple, transversly ovate petals and a purple subovoid lip.

"The species is characterized by its densely caespitose habit with narrowly elliptic, petioalte leaves that are far surpassed by the elongating, flexuous, successsively flowering inflorescence. The sepals and petals of the tiny flowers are wider than long. The lip is shallowly concave anteriorly with a small glenion, and with three small calli on the dorsum." Luer 2002

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

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

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

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