Stelis mendozae Luer 2004 SECTION Stelis
Drawing by © Carl Luer
LATE 
EARLY
Common Name Mendoza's Stelis [Ecuadorian Co-collector of species later 1900's]
Flower Size .16" [4 mm]
Found in Zamora Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations around 2200 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by 2 tubular sheaths and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early spring on an erect, arising through a slender spathe at the apex of the ramicaul, sublax, distichous, subflexuous, 2 to 3.2" [5 to 8 cm] long including the .6 to .8" [1.5 to 2 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, much longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying yellow flowers.
"Related to the S aprica complex with a type "B" lip, this species is superficially similar to S loxensis. Short pedicellate flowers are borne in a subflexuous raceme with proportionally large floral bracts. The sepals are obtuse and pubescent, the petals are round, concave and single veined and the subquadrate lip is shortly apiculate with the dorsum pubescent." Luer 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------