Platystele adelphe Luer & Hirtz 1994 SUBGENUS Platystele

Photo by © Alexander Hirtz

TYPE Drawing TYPE drawing by © Carl Luer and Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Common Name The Sister Platystele [refers to its close relationship with others within the genus]

Flower Size .24" [6 mm]

Found in Carchi province of Ecuador at elevations around 1800 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 thin, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly obovate, subacute to obtuse, narrowly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on a slender, erect, loose, flexuous, distichous, to 1.2" [to 3 cm] long including the .4 to .6" [1 to 1.5 cm] long peduncle, successively several to many flowered inflorescence arising laterally from the ramicaul and has a thin floral bract.

There are 4 very similar species all from the western side of the Andes of Ecuador, P pubescens, P scopulifera, P ximenae and this one is easily distinguished from the others by its acuminate sepals and petals and the glabrous lip.

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XI Systematics of Lepanthes Subgenus Brachycladium and Pleurothallis Subgenus Aenigma, Subgenus Elongata and Subgenus Kranzlinella Luer 1994 Drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 drawing fide/photo fide; Platystele finleyae, Pleurothallidinae, A New Species From Northwesten Ecuador Monteros, Restrepo and Baquero 2022 photo fide

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