Stelis surrogatilabia Luer & Hirtz 2004 SECTION Humboldtia
Photo/TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer
EARLY
Common Name The Surrogate Lip Stelis [refers to the adaptation of the synsepal as to appear to be a second lip]
Flower Size .04" [1 cm]
Found in Zamora-Chinchipe province of Ecuador at elevations around 1200 meters as a miniature sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and 2 sheaths at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the early summer on an erect, arising through a thin spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, loose, distichous, to 7.2" [to 18 cm] long including the 2.4 to 2.8" [6 to 7 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously several, many flowered inflorecence with infundibular, oblique, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying light yellow green flowers.
"Characterized by the loose, distichous flowered raceme that surpasses a long petiolate leaf. The flowers are gaping and light green, but a convex, triangular patch of red purple papillae within the shallowly concave synsepal is conspicuous beneath the proportionally small central apparatus. The lip is so small that it is not easily seen hidden beneath the rostellum unless it is searched for. It appears that this portion of the synsepal has taken over the role of enticing a pollinator." Luer 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXIV Pleurothallis subgenus Acianthera A Second Century of Stelis of Ecuador Luer 2004 Drawing fide
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