Stelis silverstonei Luer 2001

TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer

LATER

Common Name Silverstone's Stelis [American Doctor at University del Valle Cali - Proffessor and codiscoverer of species current]

Flower Size .08" [2 mm]

Found in Choco department of Colombia in cloud forests elevations around 1950 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout, ramicauls enveloped by 2 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, elliptical, subacute to obtuse, cuneate below into the ill-defined, subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in the later summer on an erect, arising from near the apex of the ramicaul, loose, subflexuous, to 1.2" [to 3 cm] long including the .6" [1.5 cm] long peduncle, successively single, 5 to 6 flowered inflorescence with as long as the pedicel floral bracts and carrying flowers without color data.

"This species is apparently endemic on the Cerro Torra in the Western Cordillera of Colombia. It is unique in the genus Stelis because of the thickened, subverrucose apex of a narrowly oblong dorsal sepal, very much like the middle sepal of the genus Scaphosepalum. The plant is very small with an abbreviated ramicaul and a subflexuous raceme longer than the leaf. The lateral sepals are nearly orbicular; the petals are subquadrate as seen in numerous species of the genus; and the lip is ovate and acute with a large, rounded callus with a pair of lamellae on the front surface." Luer 2001

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Orquideología Vol 22 #1 pg 62-64 Luer 2001 drawing fide;

Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz, Compendium Duque 2008 drawing fide;

Harvard Pap. Bot. 23: 171 Luer & Escobar 2018 drawing fide;

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