Stelis moniligera Luer & Hirtz 2007 SECTION Stelis
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Necklace Bearing Stelis [refers to the flower habit]
Flower Size .08" [2 mm]
Found in Carchi province of Ecuador at elevations around 3000 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by tubular sheath above the middle and 2 to 3 imbricating others toward the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on an erect, arising through a fugaceous spathe near the apex of the ramicaul, congested, secund, 4 to 10" [10 to 25 cm] long including the 2 to 5.2" [5 to 13 cm] long peduncle, many flowered inflorescence with tubular, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying cleistogamous, purple flowers.
"Characterized by a raceme of tiny, cleistogamous, spherical, purple flowers held in a row. The small plant is coarse with rigid, fleshy leaves that are longer than their short, stout peduncles. The central apparatus fills up the interior of the flower within the closed sepals." 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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