Platystele jungermannioides (Schltr.) Garay 1974
Photo by © Alvaro Salazar Ugalde and the Monteverde Orchid Garden Website
Photo by © Edgar Mo Mo
Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name The Jungermannia-Like Platystele [Jungermannia - Jungerman German Botanist 1600's]
Flower Size .1" [2.5mm]
Found in Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Panama in lower cloud forests at elevations of 200 to 1000 meters as a mini-miniature hot growing epiphyte with ascending, rudimentary ramicauls enveloped basally by a single loose sheath and carrying a single apical, suberect, fleshy, elliptical, subacute, gradually becoming cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a .2" [5mm] long including the peduncle, loose, successively 2 to 3 flowered, racemose inflorescence.
A very small species reputed at the time to be the smallest in the world, but recently new smaller species have been encountered in Ecuador by Lou Jost. Grows into a thick, moss-like mat in cultivation.
Synonyms *Pleurothallis jungermannioides Schltr. 1912
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. 11(4/8): 42-43. 1912; Icones Orchidacearum 1 Plate 85 Hagsater and Salazar 1990 drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing fide; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
