Platystele brenneri Luer 1976 SUBGENUS Platystele

Photo by © Andreas Kaye and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website

TYPE Drawing TYPE drawing by © Carl Luer and Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Common Name Brenner's Platystele [American Orchid Enthusiast in Ecuador current]

Flower Size 1/4" [7mm]

Found in Panama and Ecuador in rainforests at elevations of 400 to 1000 meters as a mini-miniature sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with suberect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3, thin, ribbed, imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-obovate, obtuse, apiculate apically, narrowing and cuneate below into the subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a congested, .25 to 4" [7 to 10 mm] long including the .16 to .4" [4 to 10 mm] long peduncle, successively several flowered inflorescence arising laterally from the ramicaul with thin floral bracts and holding the flowers well above the leaves .

Closely related to P johnstonii but that one only occurs in Venezuela and differs in the more elongate dorsal sepal with a clavate apex.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orchids of Venezuela, An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing fide; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 204 Dodson 1980 drawing good; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 drawing fide; Orquideas de la Serrania del Baudo Misas Urreta 2006 drawing/photo fide;

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