Stelis santiagoi Luer & Hirtz 2002 SECTION Humboldtia
Photo by Ecuagenera and their Ecuador Orchid Website
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name Santiago's Stelis [Ecuadorian Collector of species currrent]
Flower Size .1" [3 mm]
Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador in rainforests at elevations around 800 meters as a small to just medium sized, warm growing, caespitose epiphyte with ascending erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3 basal, loose, tubular sheaths and another below the middle and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on an erect, arising through aspathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, congested, distichous, 8 to 12 " [20 to 30 cm] long including the 4 to 4.8" [10 to 12 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously many flowered, racemose inflorescence with tubular, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying dark purple flowers that are glabrous externally and cellular-glandular within.
"Characterized by a small to just medium sized orchid with long racemes of numerous dark purple flowers. The plant is densely caespitose with stout ramicauls bearing an equally long, acute, elliptical leaf far exceeded by a raceme of numerous flowers. Basically the flowers are similar to S purpurea. The synsepal is shallowly gibbous beneath the lip. The rounded margins of the petals are indistinct. The lip is short with the anterior surface plain, with only a barely perceptible pair of low calli within the broadly rounded margin." Luer 2002
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
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