Platystele spatulata Luer 1980

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

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Common Name The Spoon Shaped Platystele [refers to the shape of the leaf]

Flower Size .16" [4 mm]

Found in Pichincha Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations around 2200 meters as mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with an erect, slender ramicaul enveloped by 2 to 3, thin, ribbed, imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse to rounded, spathulate-petiolate, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on weak, suberect, loose, flexuous, distichous, to 7.2” [18 cm] long including the filiform, 1.2 to 1.6" [3 to 4 cm] long peduncle, successively, to 5 at once, many flowered inflorescence arising laterally from the ramicaul with thin floral bracts.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 drawing fide

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