Stelis pulchra Luer & R.Escobar 2016 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name The Beautiful Stelis

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Tolima departments of Colombia at elevations of 2500 to 2930 meters as a miniature to small sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a loose, tubular sheath below the middle and 2 others below and at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, broadly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a single, erect, arising from a node near the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle .4 to 1" [1 to 2.5 cm] long, rachis 3.2 to 3.6" [8 to 9 cm] long, congested, strict, distichous, held in 2 opposite facing ranks ,mostly simutaneously many flowered inflorescence with red, oblique, acuminate, acute, much longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying light yellow-brown flowers with a yellow green central appapratus.

"This caespitose species is distinguished by obtuse, elliptical leaves slightly exceeded by a raceme with two rows of crowded, opposite-facing flowers. Most remarkable are the long, red, acuminate floral bracts. The sepals are yellow-brown and five-veined with the lateral sepals semiconnate into an imperfect synsepal. The petals are three-veined, and the lip is type A with the three veins thickened on the dorsum as low, parallel calli." Luer 2016

Synonyms

References

*Harvard Pap. Bot. 21: 84 Luer & Escobar 2016 drawing fide

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