Stelis scutellifera Luer & R.Escobar 2017 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer & and Harvard Papaers in Botany Vol 22[1]:56 2017

Common Name The Little Target Carrying Stelis [refers to the dark purple central apparatus surrounded by yellow sepals]

Flower Size .24" [6 mm]

Found in Cundinamarca department of Colombia in paramo on trees at elevations around 2800 meters as a small sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender to stout ramicauls enveloped by a sheath below the middle and 2 to 3 others below and at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute to subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a 1 to 2, arising through a spathe from a node below the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle .8 to 1.2" [2 to 3 cm] long, erect, rachis 3.2" [8 cm] long, disitchous, laxly, mostly simultaneously, many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, just shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying shortly pubescent flowers with yellow sepals and a dark purple central apparatus."

"This large, caespitose species is distinguished by a combination of morphological features that are not unusual: stout ramicauls in larger plants; elliptical leaves, and one or two inflorescences that do not exceed the leaves; broad, obtuse, shortly pubescent sepals with the dorsal sepal 5-veined; 3-veined petals; and a thick, subquadrate, type "A" lip with a deep glenion. The dark purple central apparatus seems to be the bull’s eye of a yellow target. Luer & Escobar 2017

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Harvard Papers in Botany Vol 22[1]:56 Luer & Escobar 2017 drawing fide;

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