Stelis nana Lindl. 1859 SECTION Humboldtia

Drawing by Carl Luer

Common Name The Small Stelis

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Zamora Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations around 2300 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by 2 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute to acute, cuneate below into the shortly petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on an erect, arising through a spathe from an annulus congested, distichous, 1.2 to 2.4" [3 to 6 cm] long including the .8" [2 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously several flowered inflorescence with infundibular, inflated, obtuse, as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying purplish to purple green flowers.

A small plant with large bracted, simultaneously flowered raceme up to about as long as the leaf. Th dorsal sepal is broadly elliptical with 5 veins and lateral sepals are partially connate into a concave synsepal. The petals are transverse and 3 veined with a thickened margin and the lip is type "A"." Luer 2009

Synonyms Stelis tessmannii Mansf. 1928

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Fol. Orchid. 8: 16 Lindley 1859; Notizbl. Bot. Gart. Berlin-Dahlem 10: 238 Mansfield 1928 as S tessmannii;

Orchids of Peru Vol 1 Schweinfurth 1958 as S tessmannii;

Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 769 Bennett & Christenson 2001 Drawing not = ?;

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador Part IV Luer 2009

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador Part IV Luer 2009 drawing fide;

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