Stelis gravida Luer & R.Escobar 2016 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

LATER

Common Name The Pregnant Stelis [refers to the callus of the lip]

Flower Size .08" [2 cm]

Found in Antioquia department of Colombia at elevations around 1850 to 2700 meters as small to just medium sized, cool to cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a thin tubular sheath above the middle and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, erect, narrowly linear, acute, narrowing below into the base leaf that blooms in the later spring on a single, from a node at the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle less than .4" [<1 cm] long, rachis 1.6 to 4.8" [4 to 12 cm] long, erect, strict, congested, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying light yellow green, glabrous flowers.

"This little, caespitose species with narrowly linear leaves, is variable in the length of the leaf, and the length of the inflorescence. The minute flowers are borne in strict, congested racemes. The sepals are glabrous and threeveined, and the petals are thin, faintly three-veined or with only one vein visible. The lip is filled with a proportionately large, smooth, ovoid callus with the rounded summit protruding upward beneath the column." Luer & Escobar 2017

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Harvard Pap. Bot. 21: 73 Luer & R Escobar 2016 drawing fide

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