Stelis punchinello Luer & R.Vásquez 2018

SECTION Stelis

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and Selbyana 32(1,2): 88 Luer & Vasquez 2018

LATER

Common Name The Punchinello Stelis [Named for Punchinello, a celebrated, comical puppet]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found in La Paz department of Bolivia at elevations around 2750 meters as a miniature to just small sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath from below the middle and another 2 at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later spring on an erect, from a spathe from below apex of the ramicaul, peduncle .12 to .16" [3 to 4 cm] long, rachis 2.4 to 2.8" [6 to 7 cm] long, erect, flexuous, sublax, distichous, mostly simultaneously several flowered inflorescence with oblique, acute, as long as the pedicel floral bracts and carrying flowers with green suffused with purple on the margins sepals , dull white petals and a dull purple lip.

"This caespitose species with inflated, contorted lateral sepals is distinguished by a flexuous raceme about as long as a long-petiolate leaf. The sepals are unusual with an ovoid convexity at the connation between the dorsal and laterals, but the broader lateral sepals are most unusual with the sides recurved above the midvein, and concave below the midvein, forming a retrorse, inflated mentum." Luer & Vasquez 2018

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Selbyana 32(1,2): 88 Luer & Vasquez 2018

Selbyana 32(1,2): 152 Luer & Vasquez 2018 Drawing fide;

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