Stelis gentryi Luer & Dodson 2004 SECTION Labiatae
Drawing by © Carl Luer
LATE 
EARLY 
Common Name Gentry's Stelis [American Orchid Enthusiast and Collector of species later 1900's - early 2000's]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Carchi province of Ecuador in scrub forests at elevations around 3100 meters as a small sized, cold growing, densely caespitose ascending epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a short tubular sheath near the middle and 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptic, subacute to acute, narrowing below into the base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on 2 to 6, arising through a slender spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, erect to suberect, congested, distichous, 1.6 to 2.8" [4 to 7 cm] long including the .32 to .6" [.8 to 1.5 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaenously many flowered inflorescence with broadly tubular, as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying purple flowers.
"Allied to S schomburgkiii but distinguished by the several, congested racemes that are much shorter than the leaves. The flowers of the two species are very similar bu S gentryi has sepals with long-pubescence. The lip is oblong with the truncate apex sharply apiculate." Luer 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
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