Stelis lepidella Luer & Hirtz 2007 SECTION Stelis

Drawing by © Carl Luer

EARLY

Common Name The Pretty Little Stelis

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations around 2250 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing. caespitose epiphtye with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by 2 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ellipitcal, obtuse, cuneate below into the base leaf that blooms in the early winter on an erect, arising from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, lax, distichous, subflexuous, to 3.2" [8 cm] long including the .8 to 1.2" [2 to 3 cm] long peduncle, successively 2 to 3, several flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying glabrous flowers with green above the middle and purple below the middle sepals , purple petals and a purple lip.

"Distinguished by a caespitose habit with elliptical, long-petioalte leaves adn a loose, flexuous, several flowered raceme of proportionally lareg, colorful flowers longer than the ramicaul. The sepals are ovate and glabrous. The lunate petals are large with the thick margincellular-erose. The lip is obtuse with a prominent bar and a round callus on the dorsum." Luer 2007

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIX A Third Century of Stelis of Ecuador Systematics of Apoda-Prorepentia Luer 2007

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIX A Third Century of Stelis of Ecuador Systematics of Apoda-Prorepentia Luer 2007 drawing fide;

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