Stelis protuberans Luer & Hirtz 2007 SECTION Stelis
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Protuberant Stelis [refers to the bulging bases of the sepals]
Flower Size .24" [6 mm]
Found in Imbabura province of Ecuador at elevations around 2800 meters as a small sized, cold growing, epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by an evanescent, tubular sheath near the middle and 2 to 3 imbricating others below and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute to obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on an erect, arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, subdense, distichous, to 6" [to 15 cm] long including the .8" [2 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously several, many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, revolute margined, much longer than teh ovary floral bracts and carrying glabrous flowers with purple sepals with an olive hue, and a dark red central apparatus.
"Characterized by a narrowly elliptical leaf about as long as the ramicaul and its inflorescnece. The raceme is erect and crowded with flowers that retain adhernet lateral sepals as in Section Humboldtia, but eventually spreading to expose a protuberance formed by the convex bases of the sepals with the central apparatus mounted at the summit. The petals are transversely calloused and three veined, but a faint additional pair are visible. The lip is shallowly transverse with three calli on the dorsum." Luer 2007
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIX A Third CXentury of Stelis of Ecuador Systematics of Apoda-Prorepentia Luer 2007 wrong drawing not;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador part IV Luer 2009 drawing fide;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------