Stelis retroversa O.Duque 1997 SECTION Stelis
TYPE Photo/TYPE Drawing by Oscar Duque and The Epidendra Website
Common Name The Back Turned Stelis [refers to the sepals]
Flower Size .1" [2.5 mm]
Found in Antioquia department of Colombia in cloud forests at elevations around 2100 to 2300 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with close set ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3 loose, inflated, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, oblong-elliptical, subacute, tridenticulate, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on an erect, arising through a spathe from below the apex of the ramicual, fractiflex, 2 to 2.4" [5 to 6.5 cm] long including the peduncle, few flowered inflorescence with large oblique, acute at the ostium, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts and carrying diminutive, greensh-pink, glabrous flowers.
"S. retroversa shares its fractiflex scape with several species of Stelis, among them S. flexuosa, S. wercklei, S. concinna, S. londonnii, and its retrorse sepals with others like S. hylophila, but it is different from all of these plants. S. retroversa is easy to recognize by its small size, its fractiflex scape with diminute flowers toward the extremity, its retrorse sepals, and by its saccular lip." O Duque 1997
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
* Orquideología VOl 20 #3 pg 359-365–366, 368–369, pl. 7, f.1–3; pl. 14, f. 1 Duque 1997 drawing/photo fide;
Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz A Compendium Duque 2008 drawing fide;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
