Platystele ornata Garay 1958
Photo by © Jacob Uluwehi Knecht and The Pinterest Photo Website
Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name The Ornate Platystele [refers to the fringe on the sepals and petals]
Flower Size .06" [1.5 mm]
Found in Miranda state of Venezuela and Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador in wet cloud forests at elevations around 400 meters as a mini-miniature sized, hot growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3, thin, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-obovate, obtuse to rounded, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms at any time of the year on an erect to suberect, to .88" [2.2 cm] long including the .4 to .48" [1 to 1.2 cm] long peduncle, dense, distichous, successively several flowered inflorescence arising laterally on the ramicaul and has a thin, shorter than the pedicel floral bract and carrying non-resupinate flowers.
"One of the smallest flowered species of the Orchidaceae. The tiny, purple flowers are cellular-glanduilar with irregular, glandular hairs along the margins of the sepals and petals." Luer 1990
Synonyms Pleurothallis guatopensis Foldats 1970; Pleurothallis ornata (Garay) Foldats 1968
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 1 Dunsterville & Garay 1959 drawing fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 32 #10 1963 photo good; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965 drawing fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 36 #9 1967; Flora De Venezuela Volumen 15 Segunda Parte Foldats 1970 as Pleurothallis ornata drawing fide; Flora de Venezuela Volumen 15 quinta parte Foldats 1970 as Pleurothallis guatopensis; Die Orchideen 3 Auflage Bd 1 Sonderabdruck aus Schlechter Lieferung 8 449 - 512 Brieger, Maatsch and Senghas 1976; Orchids of Venezuela An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 drawing fide
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