Stelis sororcula Luer & Hirtz 2007 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer

Common Name The Little Sister Stelis [refers to the tiny habit]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Tungaruhua province of Ecuador at elevations around 1300 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on 1 to 2, arising from the apex of the ramicaul, erect, subcongested, flexuous, to 10 to 14" [25 to 35 cm] long including the .4" [1 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously several flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying rose colored flowers with a red central apparatus.

"Stelis sororcula Luer & Hirtz is similar to S ebenea, but the sepals are transversely ovate and black with a short, white pubescence. The petals and lip are similar. The dark purplish petals and lip do not differ remarkably from a common pattern, with thickened, round-margined, three-veined petals and a more or less subquadrate lip with a thickened, rounded apex." Luer 2012

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIX A Third Century of Stelis of Ecuador Systematics of Apoda-Prorepentia Luer 2007

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIX A Third Century of Stelis of Ecuador Systematics of Apoda-Prorepentia Luer 2007 drawing fide;

Harvard Papers in Botany, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 333 to 368 MISCELLANEOUS NEW SPECIES IN THE PLEUROTHALLIDINAE (ORCHIDACEAE) Carlyle A. Luer 2012

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