Platanthera exelliana Soó 1929 Drawing by © R Pantling and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

LATE THROUGH EARLY

Common Name Exell's Platanthera [British Museum Curator 1900's]

Flower Size .2" to .32" [5 to 7 mm]

Found in the Chinese Himalayas, the eastern Himalayas and Nepal at elevations around 3000 to 4200 meters as a small sized, cold growing terrestrial with a fusiform tuber giving rise to an erect, slender stem with a basal tubular sheath and carrying 1, occasionally 2, sessile, subacute, elliptic to oblong-elliptic leaves that blooms in the late spring through early fall on an erect, terminal, 2 to 4" [5 to 10 cm] long, 8 to 15 flowered inflorescence with linear-lanceolate to lanceolate, acute floral bracts.

Synonyms Habenaria oligantha Hook.f. 1890; Platanthera elachyantha Tang & F.T.Wang 1951

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; The Orchids of Sikkim-Himalaya Part 1 King & Pantling 1898 as Habenaria oligantha drawing fide; Indian Orchids A Field Guide to Identification and Culture Vol 1 Pradhan 1976 as Habenaria oligantha drawing fide; The Orchids of Bhutan Pearce & Cribb 2002;

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