Stelis hydroidea Luer & Hirtz 2004 SECTION Stelis
Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Hydroid-Like Stelis [refers to the long pubescent callus on the dorsum of the lip]
Flower Size .12 [3mm]
Found in Loja and Zamora Chinchipe provinces of Ecuador in wet montane forests at elevations around 2200 to 2450 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose terrestrial with erect, slender, fasciculate ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and another above the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical-obovate, subacute to obtuse, narrowly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on an erect, more or less arching, congested, 1.6 to 2.6" [4 to 6.5 cm] long including the 1.2 to 1.6" [3 to 4 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously several flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe from an annulus at the the apex of the ramicaul and has oblique, inflated, acute, longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying dark purple flowers.
"Distinguished by the small, caespitose habit, a weak, congested, simultaneously several flowered raceme of small, dark purple flowers that barely surpasses the elliptical leaf, broadly obtuse sepals, transversely suboblong petals with a thickened margin and a transverse, obtuse lip with a rounded, long-pubescent callus on the dorsum." Luer 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
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