Platystele smaragdina H.Medina, J.Portilla & I.Portilla 2025
TYPE Photo/TYPE Drawing by © Hugo Medina
EARLY 
EARLY 
LATE
Common Name or Meaning The Emerald Green Platystele [refers to the flower color]
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in Zamora Chinchipe province of Ecuador in primary forests at elevations around 1000 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphtye with an erect green, terete, ramicaul enveloped by 1 to 2 and carrying a single, apical, olive green, fleshy, spathulate leaf that blooms in the early summer, late fall and early winter on a green, terete, peduncle glabrous, .804 to 1.08" [2.1 to 2.7 cm] long, rachis green, terete, glabrous, .044" [1.1 mm] long, congested, subfasciculate, successively, sometimes with a few flowers open at once, few flowered raceme.
"The new species is similar to Platystele ovalifolia but is easily distinguished by the more broadly spaced shoots along the rhizome (.108 to .112" versus .04" [2.7 to 2.8 mm long vs. ca. 1 mm] long between the shoots), the many flowered (vs. “several flowered;” Luer 1990) inflorescences held on erect peduncles well above the plants (vs. shorter peduncles), and the greenish flower color (vs. yellow). The species is also similar to Platystele imperialis but can be distinguished by the elliptic (vs. broadly elliptic) leaves, the linear (vs. ovoid) ovary, the appressed (vs. globose floral bracts), the broadly ovate (vs. orbicular lateral sepals), and the oval lip with an obtuse apex (vs. elliptic-orbicular with an acute apex)." A Doucette, Hugo Medina & José Portilla 2025
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
Andreettana 1(2): 14 H.Medina & J.Portilla 2025 photo/drawing fide not accepted no english or latin diagnosis
* Andreettana 2(1): 25 H.Medina & J.Portilla 2025
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