Stelis exquisita Luer 2009 SECTION Stelis

Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name The Choice Stelis

Flower Size .24" [6mm]

Found in Loja province of Ecuador at elevations around 2500 meters as a miniature to small sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls with a tubular sheath below the middle and 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly oblong, obtuse, gradually narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on an erect, arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, congested, secund, 4 to 4.4" [10 to 11 cm] long including the .4 to .8" [1 to 2 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence and has tubular, obtuse, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying yellow green flowers.

"Related to S fabulosa but S exquisita has narrowly oblong, obtuse leaves are surpassed by a simultaneously many flowered raceme of smaller flowers with the three equal, narrow sepals expanded. The petals ae faintly three veined. The ovoid lip, smaller than the column, is deeply concave above the middle with a small triangular apiculum, below the middle the lip is thick with a cleft bar and a pair of calli expending back from the base to a round patch of minute papillae above the base." Luer 2009

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador Part IV Luer 2009

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador Part IV Luer 2009 drawing fide

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