Platystele hirtzii Luer 1979 SUBGENUS Platystele
Photo by © Lourens Grobler
Photo by Rudy Bachmann and Slogarden"s Web Page
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name Hirtz' Platystele [German Engineer and Orchid Collector late 1900's]
Flower Size .4" [1 cm]
Found in Ecuador in mist forests at elevations of 2000 to 2700 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 thin, ribbed, imbricating sheaths and carrying asingle, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly ellioptic-obovate, subacute, narrowly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on a weak, suberect, distantly and successively flowered, racemose, to 2 3/4" [7 cm] long including the 1.2 to 1.6" [3 to 4 cm] long peduncle, inflorescence arising laterally from the ramicaula and has thin floral bracts.
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 photo fide; Orchid Digest Vol 79 #1 2015 photo fide;
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