Stelis longissima Luer & Hirtz 2002 SECTION Stelis

TYPE drawing by Carl Luer

Common Name The Longest Stelis [refers to the very long inflorescence]

Flower Size .16" [4 mm]

Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations of 950 to 1750 meters as a small sized, warm to cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer and fall on an erect, peduncle 2.4 to 2.8" [6 to 7 cm] long, arising through a slender spathe .12" [3 mm] long, from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, rachis 5.6 to 15.2" [14 to 38 cm] long, lax, distichous, flexuous, successively few, many flowered inflorescence with infundibular, oblique, acute, half as long as the ovary floral bract and carrying flowers with purple, microscopically pubescent within, sepals, purple proportionally large, overlapping above the column and beneath the lip, transversely semi-lunate petals and a purple thickly subquadrate lip.

"The species is distinguished by the small caespitose habit with narrowly elliptical leaves borne on shorter ramicauls and a proportionally longer inflorescence. The successively flowered raceme becomes three times or more longer than the leaves , is loose, distichous and flexuous. The sepals are expanded and obtuse, the petals are thickly triangular with a narrow trnsverse callus and the lip is nearly flat or barely concave anteriorly with a narrow glenion." Luer 2002

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIV A First Century of Stelis of Ecuador Luer 2002

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIV A First Century of Stelis of Ecuador Luer 2002 drawing fide;

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