Stelis uncifera Luer & Hirtz 2007 SECTION Nexipous
Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name The Hook Bearing Stelis [refers to the tip of the labellum]
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations around 2800 meters as a small sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a loose tubular sheath below the middle and 2 to 3 imbricating sheaths below and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on an erect then arching, arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, 14.8 to 17.6" [37 to 44 cm] long including the 4" [10 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously, many flowered inflorescence with tubular, obtuse, shorter to as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying light yellow flowers with the sepals purple suffused towards the base a black lip.
"Distinguished by the exceedingly long, stout raceme of many campanulate flowers. The dorsal sepal is deeply connate to the laterals to form a broad sepaline cup. The laterals are connate only basally. The petals are very small beside a much larger column with a pair id small stigmatic lobes. The oblong, sharply uncinate lip stans erect." 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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