Stelis fornix Luer & R.Escobar 2016 SECTION Nexipous

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and Selbyana 32(1,2): 44 Luer & Vasquez 2018

LATER

Common Name The Crypt Stelis [refers to the hollowed out lip]

Flower Size .16" [4 mm]

Found in Valle de Cauca department of Colombia at elevations around 2050 meters as a miniature sized, cool to cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a loose, tubular sheath from below the middle and another 1 to 2 at the base and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, erect, elliptical, acute, narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later spring on 1 to 2, arising through a slender spathe from a node at the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle 2.4" [6 cm] long, rachis 6 to 7.2" [15 to 18 cm] long, congested, distichous, mostly simultaneously, many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, much shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying greenish-white flowers.

"This miniature sized species with acute, elliptical leaves is exceeded by a slender, long-pedunculate raceme of crowded flowers. The sepals are shortly pubescent, three-veined and obtuse, the dorsal sepal being noticeably narrower than the lateral sepals. The petals are thin and single-veined. The lip is deeply concave between thin, erect, rounded margins, and below a convex, shortly cleft, shelf-like bar. The apex is thin and obtuse." Luer & Vasquez 2016

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Harvard Pap. Bot. 21: 70 Luer & R Escobar 2016 drawing fide

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