Stelis ramulosa Luer & Dalström 2004 SECTION Stelis
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name The Small Branched Stelis
Flower Size .16" [4 mm]
Found in Loja, Tungurahua, Napo and Zamora-Chinchipe provinces of Ecuador at elevations around 2500 to 3200 meters as a mini-miniature sized [each plantlet], cold growing, prolific epiphyte with erect to suberect, slender, prolific ramicauls enveloped by a loose tubular sheath and 2 to 3 shorter ones at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer and fall on an erect, from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, distichous, subflexuous, to 1.2 to 2.4" [3 to 6 cm] long including the .8 to 1.6" [2 to 4 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously 2 to 5, several flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying glabrous flowers with gray sepals and a purple central apparatus.
"Distinguished by the long, branching habit with small, elliptical, leaves borne by more or less equally long ramicauls and doubly surpassed by a subflexuous, successively flowered raceme. The sepals are equal, ovate and obtuse; the petals and lip are thin with a rounded apex." Luer 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;