Stelis xenica Luer & R.Escobar 2016 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer

Common Name The Foreign Stelis [Refers to strange and curious features of the flower]

Flower Size .16" [4 mm]

Found in Nariño department of Colombia at elevations around 1600 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing, repent epiphyte with ascending-erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath below the middle and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, acute, narrowing below into the ill defined, petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on an erect, peduncle .8" [2 cm] long, arising througn an inconspicuous spathe from below the apex of the ramicaul, rachis 3.2" [8 cm] long, lax, flexuous, mostly simultaneoulsy many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying dark purple minutely ciliate flowers.

"This small species is characterized by a stout, creeping and branching rhizome and elliptical leaves borne by shorter ramicauls. A several-flowered raceme of relatively large, dark purple flowers with finely ciliated sepals passes the tip of the leaf. The dorsal sepal is proportionately large, elliptical and more or less seven-veined, while the three-veined lateral sepals are nearly free and widely spread. The petals are long-acuminate at the tip. The basal part of the lip is broad with a pair of antrorse lobules; the thrice longer, terminal part of the lip is terete with the tip incurved beyond a minute lobule beneath." Luer 2016

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

*Harvard Pap. Bot. 21: 91 Luer & Escobar 2016 Drawing fide

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