Platystele gyroglossa Luer 1977
Photo by © Piet Brouwer and his P base website
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name or Meaning The Round Tongue Platystelle
Flower Size .12" [3mm]
Found in Putomayo intendencia of Colombia and Tungurahua, Napo and Moreno-Santiago provinces of Ecuador in guava plantations at elevations of 1300 to 1800 meters as a miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3, thin, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-obovate, subacute to obtuse, gradually cuneate below in to the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter and spring on an erect, arising laterally from the ramicaul, peduncle, 1.6 to 2" [4 to 5 cm] long, rachis subdense, distichous, 1.2" [3 cm] long, successively 5 to 10, many flowered inflorescence with thin, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"Vegetatively P gyroglossa is fairly large at 1.4 to 4.08" [3.5 to 10.2 cm] tall. The inflorescence produces most of the flowers simultaneously in a raceme that does not greatly surpass the leaf in length. The sepals and petals are yellow and simply ovate and the deep purple lip, about as large as the lateral sepals, is suborbicular. P gyroglossa is similar to the smaller, Central American P ovatilabia." Luer 1990
Synonyms Platystele porphyroglossa P.Ortiz 1981
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orquideologia Vol 14 #3 Dressler 1981 as P porphyroglossa drawing/photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXIV Stelis of Ecuador Luer 2002 in Addenda; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 PHOTO fide;
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