Platystele minimiflora (Schltr.) Garay, 1974
Photo by Ruben Senes and His Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
LATE 
and 
Common ame The Little-Flowered Platystele
Flower Size .006" [2 mm]
Found in Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca states of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa rica, Panama and Colombia along rivers at elevations around 100 meters as a super mini-miniature sized, hot growing epiphyte [1 cm total] with short, erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 sheaths and carrying a single, apical, elliptic, gradually narrrowing below into the conduplicate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and winter on a .4" [1 cm] long including the .32 to .6" [8 to 15 mm] long peduncle, successively, few flowering infloresence, with thin, half as long as the pedicel floral bracts.
"Closely related to the even tinier P jungermannioides from which it is diostinguisehed by the usually2 to 4 times larger habit,. shorter pedicels, ad elliptical petals about twice as broad. The differences if the size and shape of the petals are insignificant. Both species are related to P ovalifoliaA which is dostinguished by the broader, prostrate and overlapping leavse, shorter, fewer flowered racemes and a lip slightly smallewr than the sepals." Luer 1990
Synonyms Platystele halbingeriana (R.E.Schult.) Garay 1974; Pleurothallis halbingeriana R.E.Schult. 1941; *Pleurothallis minimiflora Schltr. 1923
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 19: 288. Costa Rica Schlechter 1923 as Pleurothallis minimiflora Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing okish Lip not acute; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Orquideas de la Serrania del Baudo Misas Urreta 2006 drawing/photo hmm; Diversity of Pleurothallidinae in Guatemala: An Endangered Orchid Subtribe with High Economic and Horticultural Potentials Edgar Mo Mo, Cetzal, Basu and Vega 2017 photo fide; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide
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