Stelis lilliputana Luer & F.Werner 2007 SECTION Stelis
Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Lilliputian Stelis [refers to the small plant habit]
Flower Size .08” [2 mm]
Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations around 2200 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, densely caespitose-ascending epiphyte with erect ramicauls fasciled with common sheaths and enveloped by 1 to 2, loose, acuminate apically tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on an erect, arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, subdense, subflexuous, distichous, ,4 to .6” [1 to 1.5 cm] long including the .08” [2 mm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously several flowered inflorescence with oblique, acuminate, Twicelonger than the pedicellate ovary floral bracts and carrying dull white flowers.
"Distinguished by small, ascending, fasciled ramicauls and proportionally thick roots. The short raceme of tiny semi-closed, wool white flowers open only partially. The petals are broadly margined with a thick protuberant knob at the apex. The lip is transverse with a broadly obtuse apex." 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 drawing fide;
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