Platystele dewildei Luer & R.Escobar 1994

Drawing by Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Common Name or Meaning De Wilde' s Platystele [Colombian Discoverer of Species Current]

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in Risaralda department of Colombia in montane forests at elevations around 2150 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender, ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3, thin, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, subacute leaf that is narrowly cuneate below into the petiolate base and blooms in the spring on a congested, slender, .88 to 1.12" [2.2 to 2.8 cm] long including the .8 to 1" [2 to 2.5 cm] long peduncle, successively few flowered, racemose inflorescence arising from low on the ramicaul.

This species is closely allied to P calantha. The flowers are similar in size and shape of the sepals and petals. Vegetatively they are also similar. Instead of a of a loose, flexuous raceme bore by a peduncle less than half the length of the leaf, the raceme of P. dewildei is short and congested, and borne by a peduncle longer than the leaf. In addition, instead of entire, the margins of the sepals and petals are minutely ciliate and the thick, fleshy lip is elliptical in outline instead of obovate." Luer 1996

Synonyms

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;

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