Stelis lancea Lindl. 1859 SECTION Stelis

Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name The Spear Stelis [refers to the leaf shape]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Pichincha province of Ecuador at elevations around 2500 to 2950 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing, long scandent epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly ovate, acute, cuneate below into the slender petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer and fall on 1 to 2, erect, distichous, 4 to 6" [10 to 14 cm] long including the .8 to 1.2" [2 to 3 cm] peduncle, mostly simultaneously several, many flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe below the apex of the ramicaul with oblique, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying small, light yellow or red flowers.

The leaves are elliptic-ovate, acute and long-petiolate, the multiflowered raceme of small flowers exceeds the elaf, the sepals are ovate and obtuse and the petals are transverse with a thickened margin and a transverse callus. The typical type "A" lip is concave anteriorly with a rounded apex, a shallow but relatively large glenion and a round callus on the dorsum." Luer 2009

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Fol. Orchid. 8: 3 Lindley1859

Orchids of Peru Vol 1 Schweinfurth 1958;

Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing fide;

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador Part IV Luer 2009 drawing fide;

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