Stelis impostor Luer & Hirtz 2004 SECTION Stelis
Photo by © Gerrit Verhellen
Photos by © Ecuagenera Orchid Website
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Impostor Stelis [refers to its mistaken identity] to the flowers placement on the inflorescence]
Flower Size .24" [6 mm]
Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador on the eastern slopes of the Andes at elevations around 800 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm growing, caesptose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms on an erect, loose, distichous, slightly flexuous, 2 to 2.8" [5 to 7 cm] long, several flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe with an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul and has , oblique, acute, tubular, as long as the ovary floral bracts and carries several simultaneously opening flowers with brown-lavender sepals, green petals and a green lip.
"Characterized by a loose raceme that exceeds the small, elliptical leaf. The pinkish brown flowers are distinguished by a long, disheveled, ciliate margin. The lip is shallowly subcordate and obtuse." Luer 2004
CAUTION The photos from Ecuagenera do not match Luer's drawings most notably in not having ciliate margins to the sepals but also in the different lip and bar. Carl Luer's drawing is absolutely correct.
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Pleurothallis subgenus Acianthera A Second Century of Stelis of Ecuador Epibator Ophidion Zootrophion Luer 2004 drawing ok; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 photo fide;
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