Stelis nigrescens Luer & Hirtz 2007 SECTION Humboldtia
Drawing by Carl Luer
EARLY 
Common Name The Blackish Stelis [refers to the flowers]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations around 2000 meters as a small sized, warm to cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with stout, erect, prolific ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath on the middle third and 1 to 2 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the early summer on 1 to 2, erect, arising through a spathe near the apex of the ramicaul, congested, distichous, to 3.6 to 5.6" [9 to 14 cm] long including the .8 to 1.6" [2 to 4 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, much longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying purple black flowers.
"Characterized by purplish, elliptical leaves surpassed by a congested, long-bracted raceme of purple black flowers. The sepals are broadly obtuse and multiveined. The petals are large with a broad, rounded margin and a sharp transverse carina. The lip is broadly rounded at the apex and three round calli are present on the dorsum." 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 2007drawing fide;
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