Stelis secunda Luer & Dalström 2004 SECTION Labiatae
Photo by © Alexander Hirtz
Drawing by Carl Luer
LATE
Common Name The Secund Stelis [refers to the flowers positioning]
Flower Size .24" [6 mm]
Found in Imbabura province of Ecuador at elevations of 3300 to 3700 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, ascending-repent epiphyte with an ascending, repent rhizome giving rise to erect ramicauls enveloped by 2, close, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute to obtuse, cuneate below into the slender petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and fall on an erect, arising through a narrow, tubular spathe from an annulus near the apex of the ramicaul, strict, congested, secund, 3.2 to 6" [8 to 15 cm] long including the 1 to 1.2" [2.5 to 3 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with oblique, infundibular, acutejust longer than the ovary floral bracts.
"Characerized by a short, stout, ascending rhizome with ramicaulls produced at intervals, sometimes adjacent. The leaves are elliptic and long petiolate. The raceme is erect, densly fllowered and secund. The flowers are white with a purple center. The sepals are glabrous and narrowly elliptic with the laterals more or less held forward. The petals are thin and single veined and the lip is type "B"." Luer 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 photo fide;
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