Stelis cavernosa Luer & Hirtz 2004 SECTION Stelis Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Common Name The Cavernous Stelis [refers to the lip]

Flower Size .24” [6 mm]

Found in Zamora Chinchipe and Morona-Santiago Ecuador at elevations around 1650 to 2250 meters as a small sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by a tubular sheath above the middle and 2 others at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-ovate, obtuse, narrowly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on an erect, strict, congested, distichous, 7.2 to 8.8” [18 to 22 cm] long including the 1.6 to 2” [4 to 5 cm] long peduncle, simultaneously several, many flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul with conspiculous, acute, oblique floral bracts.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI Luer 2004 drawing fide

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