Stelis villosilabia Luer & Hirtz 2009 SECTION Labiatae Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

EARLY

Common Name The Hairy Lip Stelis

Flower Size .08" [2 mm]

Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations around 2800 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with an erect, slender ramicaul enveloped by loose, ribbed tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, cuneate below into the slender petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on an erect, arising from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, subflexuous, loose, 2" [5 cm] long including the 1" [2.5 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously several flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying light yellow, glabrous flowers.

"Closely allied to S exigua but differs in the much larger flowers with semi-connate sepals borne i a loose, simultaneously several flowered raceme and a thick mat of coarse hairs that occupy the proximal half of a subquadrate lip. It is alos similar to S capsula and S dimidata but differs in the single veined lateral sepals and petals. With the later 2 it shares deeply connate sepals that form a cup to contain the central apparatus." Luer 2009

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador Part IV Luer 2009

Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXX Lepanthes of Jamaica Stelis of Ecuador Part IV Luer 2009 drawing fide

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------