Platystele caudatisepala [C Schweinfurth] Garay 1974 SUBGENUS Platystele

Photo/by © Luis Baquero

Another Orchid

Photo by Jean Marc Palandre and his Flickriver Photo Orchid Site

Another Flower from Junin Peru

Photo by Erica Abad de Moron

Drawing

Drawing by © Carl Luer

LATER EARLY

Common Name The Long Tailed Sepal Platystele

Flower Size .3" [7.5 mm]

Found in Chiapas state of Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador and Peru in extremely wet montane cloud forests at elevations around 400 to 1100 meters as a mini-miniature sized, hot to cool growing epiphyte with slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3, thin, ribbed, imbricating sheaths and carrying a single apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptic, subacute, gradually narrowing below into the cuneate, subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in the later summer through early winter on an erect, arising from low on the ramicaul, peduncle filiform, .4 to 1" [1 to 2.5 cm] long, rachis congested, to .32" [8 mm] long successively single, 6 flowered inflorescence with thin, shortere than the pedicel floral bracts.

"Recognized by the caespitose habit, lang-attenuate sepals, minutely ciliate petals amd a comparitively small, ovate lip." Luer 1990

An interesting note is that the dorsal sepal continues to elongate during its floracion and can get to almost 1/2" [1.25 cm] long.

Synonyms *Pleurothallis caudatisepala Schweinf. 1937

ReferencesW3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Bot. Mus. Leafl. 4(7): 113. 1937. as Pleurothasllis caudatisepala; * Orquideología 9(2): 119. Garay 1974. Icones Orchidacearum 5-6 plate 636 Hagsater & Soto Drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing fide; Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo ok [tepals seem more like P brenneri but li pis too small]; Guatemala Y Sus Orquideas Behar & Tinschert 1998 photo fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 drawing fide; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko & Bermudez 2009 photo ok; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018; LANKESTERIANA 19(1): 7. Baquero & Verkovitch 2019 photo fide; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide; Platystele finleyae, Pleurothallidinae, A New Species From Northwesten Ecuador Monteros, Restrepo and Baquero 2022 photo fide

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