Platystele fimbriata Luer & Hirtz 1990

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Website

Common Name The Hairy Platystele [refers to the sepals and petals]

Flower Size .16" [4 mm]

Found in Esmeraldas province of Ecuador in wet forests at elevations around 750 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3, thin, ribbed, imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute to obtuse, narrowly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the summer on a filiform, erect to suberect, to 1.1" [2.7 cm] long including the [1.5 to 1.7 cm] long peduncle, distichous, subflexuous, successively several flowered inflorescence arising from the ramicaul and has an oblique, shorter than the pedicel floral bract.

"This species, P resimula and P rhinocera have very similar, thick, obovoid lips with an incurved apex, but the sepals and petals differ markedly. P fimbiata is distinguished by the broadly ovate, obtuse, long fimbriate dorsal sepal with 3 incomplete veins, semiconnate, shortly ciliate lateral sepals and broad shortly acuminate, long-fimbriate petals." Luer 1990

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 drawing fide

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