Platystele hampshireae Luer 1998
Photos by Peter Peeters and his Flickr Orchid Photo Website
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
LATE 
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Common Name or Meaning Hampshire's Platystele [American Orchid enthusiast and Co-collector of species current]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Chiriqui department of Panama in wet montane forests at elevations around 1200 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect, slender, ramicauls enveloped by a thin tubular sheath and carrying a single, apical, coriaceous, elliptical, subacute to obtuse leaf that is cuneate below into the subpetiolate base and blooms in the late winter and early spring on an erect, loose, distichous, flexuous, capillary 1" [2.5 cm] long including the .4 to .8" [1 to 2 cm] long peduncle, successively few flowered, racemose inflorescence arising laterally from the ramicaul with thin floral bracts.
Distinguished by the caespitose habit, a lax, flexuous, few flowered raceme about 3 times longer than the leaves. attenuate, glabrous sepals, attenuate, ciliate petals and a suborbicular lip with the rounded apex minutely short-caudate." Luer 1998
CAUTION The photos above are exact in every respect to Luer's Type drawing except the apex of the lip. In the type the lip is more acuminate and smooth and not shortly thickened and cellular-glandular. Please use with caution!!
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XVI Systematics of Pleurothallis SUBGEN Crocodeilanthe, Rhynchopera and Talpinaria Luer 1998 drawing fide;
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