Stelis radicans Luer & R.Escobar 2016 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name The Root Prodicing Stelis [refering to the rhizome with numerous roots]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in Cauca department of Colombia at elevations around 3250 meters as a miniature sized, cold growing, ascending repent epiphyte with an erect, stout rhizome giving rise to erect slender ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and 1 to 2 others below and at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute, narrowly cuneaate below into the base leaf that blooms in the fall on 1 to 2, erect, arising from a node below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle .4" [1 cm] long, rachis 1.6 to 2" [4 to 5 cm] long, erect, congested, distichous, mostly simutaneously many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying purple flowers.

"This species is distinguished by a thick, more or less erect rhizome with numerous roots; slender, erect ramicauls with acute, narrowly elliptical leaves; one or two, distichous racemes slightly shorter than the leaf; and three-veined sepals and petals. The lip is an unusual variation of type A without being concave below the bar. The anterior surface is smooth without a glenion, but with a rounded callus on the dorsum." Luer 2016

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Harvard Pap. Bot. 21[2]:216 Luer & Escobar 2016 drawing fide

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------