Platystele lehmannii Luer 1994

TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website

Common Name Lehmann's Platystele [German orchid collector 1800's]

Flower Size .2" [5 mm]

Found Cauca department of Colombia in lower montane evergreen forests at elevations around 1400 to 1700 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3, thin, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, subacute, narrowly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the later spring on an erect, arising laterally on the ramicaul, peduncle 1 to 1.2" [2.5 to 3 cm] long, filiform, rachis .4" [1 cm] long, successively single, few flowered inflorescence with thin as long as the ovary floral bracts.

"This comparatively large-flowered species was collected twice in the same area of southern Colombia by Consul Lehmann in the 1800's. It is distinguished by the small habit, narrowly elliptical, petiolate leaves, with the peduncle a little longer. The raceme is loosely and successively flowered. The pale yellow flowers are proportionately large. The dorsal sepal is narrowly ovate and concave; the laterals are oblique and shortly acuminate. The broad, oblique, acute petals are nearly as large as the sepals. The lip is elliptical an shallowly channeled." Luer 1994

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XI Systematics of Lepanthes Subgenus Brachycladium and Pleurothallis Subgenus Aenigma, Subgenus Elongata and Subgenus Kranzlinella Luer 1994 Drawing fide;

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