Stelis litensis Luer & Hirtz 2007SECTION Stelis
Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Lita Stelis [A town near where the species was encountered]
Flower Size .12” [3 mm]
Found in Esmeraldas province of Ecuador at elevations around 700 meters as a small sized, hot to warm growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath in the middle third and 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on an erect, arising through a slender spathe below the apex of the ramicaul, sublax, 3.2 to 4” [8 to 10 cm] long including the 1.2 to 1.6” [3 to 4 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously 1 to 2, many flowered inflorescence with infundibular, oblique, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying yellow green flowers with light green sepals.
" Characterized by the acute, elliptical leaves about as long as the slender ramicauls. The racemes, succsssively few flowered, eventually equal the length of the leaf. The sepals are broadly ovate and convex. The petals are rounded and three-veined and the lip is thickly roundedwith a round acallus 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 2007drawing fide;
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