Platycoryne micrantha Summerh. 1958

Drawing by © Graham Williamson

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Common Name The Small Flowered Platycoryne

Flower Size .25" [.62 cm]

Found in Angola and Zambia in perrenially wet boggy grasslands at elevations around 1000 to 1400 meters as a small sized, cool growing terrestrial with ellipsoid tubers giving rise to an erect stem carrying a few spread out, sheathing leaves that blooms in the late spring and summer on an erect, 1 to 5 flowered inflorescence with broadly lanceolate, acuminate, shorter than the ovary floral bracts and carrying suberect, orange flowers.

"This species has flowers similar to P crocea but fewer and half the size as well as the side lobes of the lip are longer and narrower and similar to those of Platycoryne guingangae but it can be distinguished from P micrantha by the bilobed petals. From P mediocris P micrantha differs in the more slender growth, the smaller flowers, the narower lateral lobes of the labellum and the relatively longer lateral arms of the rostellum." Summerhayes 1958

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* Kew Bull. 13: 71 Summerhayes 1958

The Orchids of South Central Africa Williamson 1977 drawing fide;

Flora Zambesiaca Vol 11 Orchidaceae Part 1 Pope 1995;

Orchidaceae of West Central Africa Vol 1: 183 Szlatchecko etal 2010 drawing fide

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