Stelis saurocephala Luer & Hirtz 2004 SECTION Nexipous
Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name The Lizard Head Stelis [refers to the flower shape]
Flower Size .16" [4 mm]
Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations around 950 meters as a small sized, warm growing caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a long tubular sheath above the base and 2 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute to obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on an erect, arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, congested, distichous, 1.6 to 2" [4 to 5 cm] long including the very short peduncle, mostly simultaneously several flowered inflorescence with tubular, shorter than theovary floral bracts and carrying downward facing flowers with the thickly fleshy, glabrous sepals purple on the outside and yellow within and the central apparatus purple.
'Characterized by an elliptical,eptioalte leaf about as longas the ramical. The raceme is barely half as long as the leaf or shorter. The small, half open, fleshy flowers ae held against the rachis and face downwards. The sepasl are fleshy and acute with the lateerals opposite when spread. The thick, semiorbicular petasl are proportionally large, surrounding the lip, only the apex of whichprotrudes from between the petals. Although not obviously a member of the section Nexipous, the morphology of the central apparatus is very similar to others of the section." Luer 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
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