Platystele dressleri Luer 1976

TYPE Drawing

Photo by Padre Pedro Ortiz/TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

LATE EARLY

Common Name or Meaning Dressler' s Platystele [American Botanist and Discoverer of Species Current]

Flower Size .12" [3 mm]

Found in Panama province of Panama and Colombia in montane forests at elevations around 650 to 1700 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with erect, slender, ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3, thin, ribbed, imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, elliptical-obovate, obtuse leaf that is cuneate below into the petiolate base and blooms in the late winter and early spring on a congested, secund, slender, .52" [1.3 cm] long including the .2 to .28" [5 to 7 mm] long peduncle, successively several to many flowered, racemose inflorescence arising from near the apex of the ramicaul with oblique, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.

"Vegetatively this species is similar to that of Platystele stenostachya , to which it is closely related. The flowers of both species are borne in short, compact racemes. The color of the densely papililose lip of P. stenostachya varies from yellow, orange, and red to deep purple or maroon. The purple-black lip of this species is not papillose, although the margin is finely ciliate. The petals of P. stenostachya are glabrous, while those of P. dressleri are finely short-ciliate. The margins of the sepals are sparsely ciliate in one of the collections examined. Most plants of L stenostachya are much larger." Luer 1976

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Selbyana Vol 3 26 Luer 1976 Drawing fide; Orquideologia Vol 12 No 2/3 1977/8 photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990drawing fide; Orquideas de la Serrania del Baudo Misas Urreta 2006 drawing not/photo not; AOS Bulletin Vol 77 No 6 2008 photo good;

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