Stelis tetramera Luer 2007 SECTION Stelis
Drawing by © Carl Luer
LATE 
EARLY 
Common Name The Four Part Stelis [refers to the pollinarum]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Azuay province of Ecuador at elevations around 2900 to 3000 meters as a small sized, cold growing, ascending caespitose epiphyte with an ascending rhizome giving rise to an erect, slender ramicaul enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, obovate, rounded, cuneate below into the narrow petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late fall and early winter on an erect, arising through a fugaceous spathe from below the apex of the ramicaul, more or less secund, subdense, to 8" [to 20 cm] long including the 1.2 to 1.6" [3 to 4 cm] long peduncle, successively 1 to 3, many flowered inflorescence with inflated, acute, as long as to shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying green flowers with paler, glabrous sepals.
"Characterized by an ascending, caespitose ahbit; ramicauls clad in tubular sheaths and long-petiolate, obovate leaves with a rounded apex that are surpassed by a subdense raceme. The sepals are broad and obtuse with the laterals semiconnate. The transverse petals possess a distinct, transverse callus. The lip is small and concave within a broadly obtuse apex. The pollina are equal and 4 in number; two pairs of semiovoid, naked pollinia. No other species is known for 4 pollina, but often the pollina are absent, so the pollinia of numerous species is unknown." 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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