Stelis reptata Luer & R.Escobar 2016 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

Common Name The Creeping Stelis [refering to the creeping habit]

Flower Size .16" [4 mm]

Found in Antioquia and Putumayo departments of Colombia at elevations around 2500 to 3000 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, scandent, long repent epiphyte with ascending, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the base leaf that blooms in the winter on a single, erect, arising from a node on the ramicaul, peduncle .4" [1 cm] long, rachis 1.2 to 1.6" [3 to 4 cm] long, erect, congested, distichous, mostly simutaneously many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying shortly pubescent, red-purple flowers.

"This apparently uncommon little species, similar to the relatively frequent and widely distributed Stelis scansor Rchb.f., has been found in two distant localities in the departments of Putumayo and Antioquia. Stelis reptata is distinguished by a long, repent rhizome with petiolate, elliptical leaves. An erect, congested raceme with little redpurple flowers surpasses the leaf. The sepals are broadly ovate and pubescent; the petals are transversely semilunate with a thickened, rounded margin, a transverse callus, and three veins; and the lip is a thick, type A. Stelis reptata differs with a proportionately longer raceme, glabrous sepals, and thin, single-veined petals." Luer & Escobar 2016

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Harvard Pap. Bot. 21[1]:85 Luer & Escobar 2016 drawing fide

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