Stelis steganopus Garay 1979 SECTION Nexipous
Photo by © Alexander Hirtz
Drawings by Carl Luer
Common Name The Web Footed Stelis [refers to the palmate synsepal]
Flower Size .2 to .4" [.5 to 1 cm]
Found in Morona-Santiago and Pastaza provinces of Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations around 1000 to 1200 meters as a small sized, warm to cool growing, caespitose epiphtye with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a loose, tubular sheath below the middle and 2 to 3 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-oblong, subacute to obtuse, contracted below into petiolate base leaf that blooms winter on an erect, arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, congested, distichous, 2 to 3.2" [5 to 8 cm] long including the .4" [1 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorecence with oblique, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying dark purple flowers suffused with olive.
"Closely related to S nexipous but characterized by a smaller habit, shorter racemes and smaller flowers." Luer 2009
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Bot. Mus. Leafl. 27: 183 Garay 1979
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 5 Dodson 2004 photo ok;
Orchidaceae Stelis Swartz, A Compendium Duque 2008 Drawing good;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador Part IV Luer 2009
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador Part IV Luer 2009 drawing fide;
AOS Bulletin Vol 85 #6 2016 photo fide;
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