Stelis scaberula Luer & Hirtz 2007 SECTION Stelis
Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name The Scurfy Stelis [refers to the interior of the sepals]
Flower Size .08" [2 mm]
Found in Pichincha province of Ecuador at elevations around 1700 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a ribbed tubular sheath near the middle and 2 to 3 others below the middle and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly obovate-oblong, obtuse, narrowly cuneate below into the indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on an erect, arising through a spathe from below the apex of the ramicaul, lax, distichous, 1" [2.5 cm] long including the very short peduncle, mostly simultaneously few flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying flowers with fleshy subexpanded light yellow, carinate and glabrous externally, densely scabrous-papillose within sepals, and a green central apparatus.
"Similar to S hymenantha and S spathulata but differs from them both by very small floral bracts that do not enclose the peduncel and ovary. The raceme is short and loosely few flowered. The sepals are fleshy and diffusely scabrous-papillose within. The petals and lip of all three species are similar with the apiculum of S scaberula being slightly larger and longer." Luer 2007
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIX A Third Century of Stelis of Ecuador Systematics of Apoda-Porrepentia Luer 2007 drawing fide;
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