Stelis xystophora Luer 2009 SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer

EARLY

Common Name The Spear Carrying Stelis [refers to the slender leaves and ramicauls]

Flower Size .08" [2 mm]

Found in Loja province of Ecuador at elevations around 2300 to 2500 meters as a small to medium sized, cold growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with an erect, elongate, slender ramicaul enveloped by a tubular sheath in the middle third and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical-oblong, narrowly obtuse, narrowly cuneate below into the slender petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on 1 to 3, arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, erect, congested, to 2.4 to 4.4" [6 to 11 cm] long including the .4 to .8" [1 to 2 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, as long as the ovary floral bracts and carrying brownish purple flowers that are glabrous externally and microscopically cellular-papillose within.

"Distimguished by a densely caespitose habit with narrowly elliptical-oblong leaves borne by much longer, slender ramicauls and giving rise to 1 to 3 inflorescence usually shorter than, or with time barely exceeding the leaves. The raceme is slowly successive, or with several flowers open simultaneously in a many flowered raceme with the flowers overlapping. The sepals are expanded and broadly obtuse, the petals are transversely ovate and three veined and the lip is thickly subcircular and concave anteriorly with a triangular apiculum." Luer 2009

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

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

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

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

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