Stelis prava Luer & Hirtz 2004 SECTION Stelis
Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Askew Stelis [refers to the lateral sepals]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Pichincha province of Ecuador at elevations around 1500 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3, imbricating tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical-obovate, subacute to obtuse, gradually narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on an erect, distichous, flexuous, 1 to 1.6" [2.5 to 4 cm] long including the .8 to 1.2" [2 to 3 cm] long peduncle, successively and distantly single, few flowered inflorescence arising from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul with oblique, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying purple flowers.
"Characterized by the small, caespitose habit and a loose, few flowered flexuous raceme about twice as long as the narrow leaves. The sepals are obtuse and diffusely covered within by capitate or glandular cells that are visible only with a magnifying glass. The broad dorsal sepal is more than twice as long as the laterals. The lateral sepals are remarkably asymmentrical, being connate to each other for about only three qquarters of a milimeter and connate to the dorsal sepal for more than twice as much. The lateral sepals are oblique, much broader than long with the inner half markedly reduced, which imparts an awry appearance." Luer 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
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