Stelis trochophora Luer & R.Escobar 2016 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer

Common Name The Ball Bearing Stelis [refers to the two callus of the lip]

Flower Size .24" [6 mm]

Found in Santander department of Colombia at elevations around 2800 meters as a miniature to small sized, cold growing, densely ascending-caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath in the middle third and another 2 below and at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a single, arising from a node below the abscission layer, peduncle 1.2" [3 cm] long, rachis 4 to 4.8 " [10 to 12 cm] long, erect to arching, secund, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with dilated, obtuse, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying minutely shortly pubescent flowers with light green sepals suffused with purple along the veins and a green central apparatus.

"This densely caespitose-ascending species is characterized by a many-flowered, secund raceme that barely surpasses an acute, elliptical leaf borne by a slender ramicaul. The sepals are ovate and minutely pubescent; the petals are three-veined; and on the anterior surface of the minute, subquadrate lip is a central, orbicular callus." Luer & Escobar 2016

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Harvard Pap. Bot. 21: 223 Luer & Escobar 2016 drawing fide

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