IOSPE PHOTOS

Stelis foveata Lindl. 1859 SECTION Stelis

Drawing by © Carl Luer

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Cavity Stelis [refers to the Labellum]

Flower Size .24" [6 mm]

Found in Pichincha province of Ecuador on wooded ridges at elevations around 3200 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a loose tubular sheath below the middle and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, subacute, narrowly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on an erect, arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul strict, congested, 4 to 6.8" [10 to 18 cm] long including the .8 to 1.2" [2 to 3 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acuteas long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying flowes with dull white sepals, red petals and a red lip.

"Distinguished by the medium sized, densely caespitose habit ad a densely many flwoered raceme surpassing the narrowly ellipitcal leaf. The sepals are ovate with a the laterals more or less held forward. The petals are thickat the apex and three veined and the lip is deeply concave within a thin obtuse apex. The closest relative is S juncea whichis distinguished most easily by the proporetionally long, slender ramicauls and petals that are only minimally thickened. Other similar species have one veined petals." Luer 2009

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Fol. Orchid. 8: 2 Lindley 1859

Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing good;

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

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

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