Stelis ipialesensis Luer & Hirtz 2017 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name The Ipiales Stelis [Named for the community of Ipiales near where this species was collected]

Flower Size .24" [6 mm]

Found in Nariño department of Colombia at elevations around 3800 meters as a miniature to small sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and 1 to 2 others below and at the base and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, erect, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on 2 to 3, simultaneous, arising through a spathe below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle .4" [1 cm] long, rachis 2 to 2.8" [5 to 7 cm] long, erect, strict, subcongested, distichous, mostly simultaneously, many flowered flowered inflorescence with oblique, obtuse, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying red-purple, glabrous flowers.

"This species from southernmost Colombia in the Central Cordillera produces densely caespitose, slender ramicauls with acute, elliptical leaves, and a few, simultaneous, sublaxly flowered racemes nearly as long as the leaves. The sepals are ovate and 3-veined. The petals are 3-veined and transverse with a barely thickened apical margin. The lip is subquadrate with a widely cleft bar and a truncate apex with a minute, broadly acuminate apiculum.." Luer & Escobar 2017

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Harvard Pap. Bot. 22: 50 Luer & R Escobar 2017 drawing fide

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