Stelis hiatilabia Luer & R.Escobar 2016 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

LATER

Common Name The Hiati Lip Stelis [Latin "with an opening in the lip," referring to deep cleft of the bar of the lip]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Tolima department of Colombia at elevations around 2600 meters as a mini-miniature to miniature sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and another 1 to 2 below and at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, subacute to obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on an erect, arising through a spathe from a node at the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle 1.2 to 2" [3 to 5 cm] long, rachis to 3.6 to 4.4" [9 to 11 cm] long, erect, congested, distichous, mostly simultaneously, many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, as long as the pedicel floral bracts and carrying yellow flowers.

"This medium-sized, caespitose species is characterized by narrow leaves and a longer many-flowered raceme of medium-sized flowers. The sepals are glabrous, ovate, threeveined and more or less rounded at the apex; the petals are thickly reniform and convex. The lip is thick and concave beneath a deeply cleft bar." Luer 2016

I personally think the lip looks like Groucho Marx and Luer missed a chance to name it Stelis grouchoi

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Harvard Pap. Bot. 21: 198 Luer & Escobar 2016 drawing fide

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