!Platystele compacta Ames 1922 SUBGENUS Platystele
Photo by J & L Orchids and their J & L Orchid Website
Photo by A. Cascante-Marín
Drawing by © Carl Luer
Common Name or Meaning The Compact Platystele [Refers to the congested inflorescence]
Flower Size 1/5" [5mm]
Found in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia in wet montane forests at elevations of 350 to 2500 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender, ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 thin, ribbed, imbricating sheaths carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical-obovate to linear, subacute leaf that is narrowly cuneate below into the subpetiolate base and blooms a6tmot any tiem of the year on a gradually elongating, erect, slender, 2" [5 cm] long including the 1.6" [4 cm] long peduncle, densely many successively flowered, racemose inflorescence arising laterally from the ramicaul with thin floral bracts and is a cluster of tiny yellowish, simultaneous flowers
Distinguished from others by the rather narrow linear-oblanceolate leaves, greenish-yellow spreading flowers and an inflorescence that extends longer than the length of the leaves.
Synonyms Platystele bulbinella Schlechter 1910; Pleurothallis compacta [Ames] Ames & Schweinf. 1930; *Stelis compacta Ames 1908
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orchidaceae 3 Studies in the Family Orchidaceae Fascile 3 Ames 1908 as Stelis compacta drawing fide; Die Orchideen Schlechter 1915 as P bulbinella; * Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 35: 85. Ames 1922 Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 19: 102. Costa Rica Schlechter 1923 as P bulbinella; Orchids of Guatemala and Belize Ames & Correll 1952 as Pleurothallis compacta; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965 as Pleurothallis compacta; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum plate 1077 Dodson 1984 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing fide; Rudolf Schlechter Die Orchideen Band 1C lieferung 42 - 43 pg 2626 - 2762 Brieger 2001; Orquideas de la Serrania del Baudo Misas Urreta 2006 drawing/photo ok; Orchids of Costa Rica Vol 2 Morales 2009 photo fide; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018; Lankesteriana 19(1). 31 - 55 2019 photo fide; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide
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