Platystele argentosa Luer & R. Escobar 1990 SUBGENUS Platystele
Photos by Patricia Harding
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name The Silvery Platystele [refers to the grey-green leaves]
Flower Size .1" [2.5 mm]
Found in Antioquia and Choco departments of Colombia at elevations of 1200 to 1450 meters as a miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte that is found low down on tree trunks with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 loose, imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, gray-green, with minute crystiline spots, obovate, obtuse, basally narrowing into a broad conduplicate petiolate base leaf and blooms fall, winter and spring on a very congested, successively many single flowered, racemose, to .6" [1.5 cm] long including the .28 to .4" [7 to 10 mm] long peduncle within the sulcus of the petiole, slender inflorescence with thin, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"Vegetatively this species is distinctive with gray-green, spathulate leaves broadly conduplicate at the base. The peduncle of the inflorescence lies in the sulcus of the petiole to bear the flowers in a congested raceme near the middle of the dorsum of the leaf. The sepals and petals are green and bear crystaline deposits similar to those seen in the leaves. The lip is deep purple, thick, ovoid and ciliate with a cordate base and an incurved apex." Luer 1990
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 6 COS 1998 photo fide; Orquideologia Vol 27 #2 2010 photo fide;
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