Stelis polycarpica Luer & Hirtz 2002 SECTION Stelis

TYPE drawing by Carl Luer

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Much Fruiting Stelis [refers to the prolific production of fruit]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Carchi province of Ecuador at elevations around 1550 meters as a small sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath above the middle and 2 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, ovate, acute, cuneate below into the slender, long-petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on an erect, peduncle .8 to 1.2" [2 to 3 cm] long, from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, rachis 4 to 6" [10 to 15 cm] long, strict, congested, secund, simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with most flowers setting capsules immediately and with oblique, tubular, obtuse, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying flowers with light yellow suffused with rose sepals, yellow, transversely obovate petals and a thick, ovoid, shallowly concave anteriorly lip with a rounded apex.

"The species is distinguished by the elliptical, acute, long-petiolate leaves far surpassed by the strict, secund, crowded raceme that produces many fruit capsules simultaneously. The sepals are ovate with the laterals semiconnate. The central apparatus is proportionally small, The petals are thick and concave and the lip is ovoid and concave anteriory with a round apex." 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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