IOSPE PHOTOS

Platystele pisifera ( Lindl. ) Luer 1977 Photo by © Andreas Kay and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website

Plant and Inflorescence Photo courtesy of Patricia Harding

Common Name The Pea Bearing Platystele [refers to the globular seed capsules]

Flower Size 1/5" [5 mm]

Found in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia at elevations of 2250 to 3000 meters as a miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with erect to suberect ramicauls enveloped basally by 2to 3 thin, ribbed, imbricating sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, coriacceous, elliptical-obovate, subacute to obtuse leaf that is narrowly cuneate below into the petiole and blooms in the spring and summer on an erect to suberect, 1 1.2 to 2.4" [3 to 6 cm] long including the .6 to 1" [1.5 to 2.5 cm] long peduncle, successively several to many flowered, subcongested, strict, racemose inflorescence arising laterally from the ramicaul and having oblique floral bracts.

Synonyms Humboldtia pisifera [Lindl] Kuntze 1891; Platystele hypsitera Luer & R.Escobar 1983; Platystele hypsiteros Luer & Escobar 1983; *Pleurothallis pisifera Lindley 1859;

References W3 Tropicos Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orquideologia Vol 16 No 1 1983 drawing as P hypsitera; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Systematics of Platystele Vol 7 1990 drawing fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 6 COS 1998 photo fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 drawing good;

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