Platystele finlaeyae Monteros, Restrepo and Baquero 2022
Photos by © Marco F Monteros [a,b,c,f] and Andres better [d,e] and Platystele finleyae, Pleurothallidinae, A New Species From Northwesten Ecuador Monteros, Restrepo and Baquero 2022
TYPE Drawing by © Marco F Monteros
LATE 
EARLY 
Common Name Finley's Platystele [Elizabeth Finley Broaddus, Student organizer of Green Leap Forward, which became the inspiration for the Reserva, The Youth Land Trust, establishing the world's first youth funded nature reserve in Carchi Ecuador. She died of a rare form of liver cancer on June 2 2014]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found Carchi province of Ecuador in lower montane evergreen forests at elevations around 1711 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect to suberect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 1 to 2thin, ribbed, imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect to suberect, coriaceous, obovate, narrowly attenuate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late winter, spring and summer on an erect, from low on the ramicaul, peduncle .2" [5 mm] long, filiform, rachis 1 to 1.8" [2.5 to 4.5 cm] long, successively single flowered inflorescence with acuminate, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"Platystele finleyae is most similar to Platystele ximenae from which it can be easily distinguished by its vermilion to vinaceous flowers (vs. yellow, suffused with purple at the basal middle), with long ciliate petals (vs. shortly pubescent) and the elliptical-oblong lip (vs. transversely cordate). Platystele finleyae appears to be related to other species belonging to the “pubescens” informal morphological group, like P. adelphe, P. decouxii, P. muscicola, P. pubescens, P. scopulifera, and P. ximenae." Monteros, Restrepo and Baquero 2022
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Platystele finleyae, Pleurothallidinae, A New Species From Northwesten Ecuador Monteros, Restrepo and Baquero 2022 drawing/photo fide
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