Stelis strobilacea Luer 2007 SECTION Humboldtia
Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Overlapping Scales Stelis [refers to the floral bracts]
Flower Size .1" [2.5 mm]
Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations around 2500 to 2700 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphtye with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a loose tubular sheath on the lower third and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-oblong, obtuse, contracted below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on 1 to 2, arising through a spathe below the apex of the ramicaul, erect, distichous, loose to congested, to 6+" [to 15 cm +] long including the 3.2 to 4" [8 to 10 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorecence with overlapping bracts above and acuminate, acute, longer than the ovary floral bracts and carrying green flowers suffused with purple.
"Characterized by the large, caespitose habit with a loose sheath along the middle third of the ramicaul. The leaf is broad and petiolate. The inflorescence barely reaching beyond the tip of the leaf, but the raceme is densely congested at the apex with long overlapping floral bracts, and appears as thought he inflorescnec would far esceed the leaf. The dorsal sepal is acute with a blunt tip and the synsepal is deeply concave. The lip is shallow with a broadly rounded apex." Luer 2007
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 drawing fide;
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