Stelis poculifera Luer & Hirtz 2002 SECTION Labiatae

TYPE drawing by Carl Luer

Common Name The Cup Bearing Stelis [refers to the lip]

Flower Size .12" [2 mm]

Found in Pichincha province of Ecuador at elevations around 2800 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute, attenuate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms on an erect, peduncle .6" [3 to 4 cm] long, from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, rachis 2 to 2.4" [5 to 6 cm] long, strict, very congested, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying flowers with yellow, glabrous, ovate, subacute sepals, brown broadly cuneate, truncate, shallowly concave, single veined petals and a brown oblong-ovoid lip.

"This species is characterized by the small densely caespitose habit and a densely many flowered racewme surpassing the narrowly elliptical leaf in length. The sepals are ovate with the laterals held forward, the petals are thin, cuneiform and single veined and the lip is longer than broad with the anterior half deeply excavate." Luer 2002

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIV A First Ccentury of Stelis of Ecuador Luer 2002

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIV A First Ccentury of Stelis of Ecuador Luer 2002 Drawing fide

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