Stelis nepotula Luer & Hirtz 2002 SECTION Stelis

TYPE drawing by Carl Luer

Common Name The Little Relative Stelis [refers to the its relationship with S morganii]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Napo and Morona-Santiago provinces of Ecuador at elevations around 1100 to 1200 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing, repent, branching epiphyte with a stout rhizome giving rise to ascending-erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a loose tubular sheath and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on an erect, peduncle .12 to .2" [3 to 5 mm] long, from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, rachis .48 to .6" [1.2 to 1.5 cm] long, congested, distichous, successively few, several flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, as long as the ovary floral bract and carrying yellow flowers with glabrous, expanded sepals, transversely ovate, cellular pubescent, shallowly concave petals and a thick, ovoid-sububquadrate lip.

"The small species is related to the much larger Stelis morganii but S nepotula is distinguished by the thick, creeping rhizome that gives rise toshort, ascending ramicauls with their small, thickly coriaceous leaves. A congested raceme of tiny flowers is borne behind the leaf, the sepals are glabrous, the petals are minutely pubescent and the lip is more of less triangular without a callus on the dorsum." 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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