Stelis langlassei Schltr. 1920
SECTION Humboldtia >
Photo by © Alexander Hirtz
Drawings by © Carl Luer
Common Name Langlasse's Stelis []
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Cauca and Nariño departments of southwestern Colombia and Carchi, Imbabura and Pichincha provinces of Ecuador at elevations around 1200 to 1700 meters as a miniature sized, cool growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a loose, tubular sheath below the middle and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute to obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer and fall on an erect, arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, congested, distichous to secund, 2 to 4.4" [5 to 11 cm] long including the .4 to .8" [1 to 2 cm] peduncle, mostly simultaneously several, many flowered inflorescence with oblique, infundibular, much longer than the ovary floral bracts.
"Characterized by a densely caespitose habit, a short, congested, several flowered raceme, long, dull white sepals with recurved sides, suffused with purple or simetimes with purple stripes and "V" shaped petals with broadly thickened margins with an apiculum. The long-apiculate lip is similar tio that of S bicornis >" Luer 2009
CAUTION This species and S bicornis have been considered to be conspecific by many with S bicornis taking precendence but I follow Luer in separating them. Please see S bisserula as it as well has been considered conspecific.
Synonyms Stelis tonsoria Luer 1981
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. Beih. 7: 89 Die Orchideen der Sudamerikanischen Kordillerenstaaten II Colombia Schlechter 1920;
Phytologia 49: 239 Luer 1981 as S tonsoria;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 photo ok; Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing fide; Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 as S tonsoria drawing fide;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador Part IV Luer 2009 drawing fide;
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