Platystele rhinocera Luer & Hirtz 1990
Photo © by Ecugenera and Orchid Website
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name Brenner's Platystele [American Orchid Enthusiast in Ecuador current]
Flower Size .28" [7mm]
Found in Narino department of Colombia and Esmeraldas province of Ecuador in wet forests at elevations of 750 to 1800 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3, thin, ribbed, imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, broadly elliptical, obtuse, apiculate apically, narrowing and cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on an erect, arising laterally and descending from the ramicaul, loose, distichous, subflexuous, 2" [to 5 cm] long including the .4 to 1.2" [1 to 3 cm] long peduncle, successively few to several flowered inflorescence and has thin, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
Very similar to P cedriense but P rhinocera differs mostly in the single veined dorsal sepal and the lateral to descending inflorescence.
"Similar to P fimbriata and P resimula in all having a thick, obovoid lips with uptunred apeces, but the sepals and petals differ markedly. Those of P fimbriata are fimbriate and those of P resimula are long-attenuate. P rhinocero is distinguished by the ovate, obtuse, entire, glabrous sepals and subulate petals. The lip is obovoid and thick at the obtuseapex where the tipis abruptly acute and erect." Luer 1990
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing fide;
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