Stelis gemmulosa Luer & Hirtz 2004 SECTION Stelis
Drawing by © Carl Luer
EARLY 
Common Name The Gem Covered Stelis [refers to the inflorescence and flowers]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Esmeraldas province of Ecuador at elevations around 300 meters as a mini-miniature sized, hot growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptic, subacute to acute, cuneate below into the indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the early summer on an erect, flexuous, 2.4" [6 cm] long including the .4 to .6" [1 to 1.5 cm] long peduncle, mostly successively few, many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying minute, red-purple flowers.
"Characterized by the caespitose habit and an elongating, successively many flowered raceme of tiny red purple flowers. The sepals are broadly ovate and long-ciliate-pubescent on the margins, the petals are thin and single veined and the lip is subquadrate with a protuberant, convex callus on the anterior surface." Luer 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
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