Stelis praecipua Luer 2017 SECTION Humboldtia

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and Harvard Pap. Bot. 22: 101 Luer 2017

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Uniquely Singular Stelis [referring to the details of the lip]

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in Nariño department of Colombia in semiopen, mossy ground, at higher elevations as a small sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath above the middle and another 2 to 3 below and at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute to subacute, narrowly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late spring and early summer on 1 to 2, erect, arising from a node below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle 2" [5 cm] long, 8 to 11.2" [20 to 28 cm] long, erect, strict, congested, simultaneously many-flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts.

"This caespitose species of section Humboldtia was identified as the Ecuadorian Stelis velutina Lindl., a superficially similar species, but it differs from the latter by glabrous sepals with revolute sides. Most distinctive is the lip that is distinguished by a thick, deeply notched bar, and an equally thick, narrowly obtuse, protruding apex." Luer 2017

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Harvard Pap. Bot. 22: 101 Luer 2017 Drawing fide

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