Stelis glomifera Luer & R.Escobar 2017 SECTION Humboldtia

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

LATER

Common Name The Branch Bearing Stelis [refers to the numerous ramicauls]

Flower Size .16" [4 mm]

Found in Antioquia and Risaralda departments of Colombia at elevations around 1820 to 2400 meters as a miniature to small sized, cool to cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, erect, elliptical, obtuse to rounded, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later spring on a single, from a node below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle .6 to 1.2" [1.5 to 3 cm] long, rachis 1.2 to 5.2" [3 to 13 cm] long, erect to arching, flexuous, successively single, few flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, shorter to as long as the pedicel floral bracts and carrying purple flowers except the yellow lateral sepals sometimes suffused with purple.

"This small species is widely distributed in the Western Cordillera of Colombia. It is characterized by a successively single-flowered raceme that gradually equals, then exceeds the leaf with an arching, lengthening, flexuous rachis. The dorsal sepal is dark purple while the synsepal is yellow, or variously marked or suffused with purple. A distinct subspherical callus is present on the dorsum of the lip. The flowers of this species are similar to those of Stelis gongylophora , but the latter is a large plant with multiple, simultaneously flowered racemes." Luer & Escobar 2017

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Harvard Pap. Bot. 22: 44 Luer & R Escobar 2017 drawing fide

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