Platystele lycopodioides Luer & Hirtz 1990
Photo by © Alexander Hirtz
TYPE drawing by © Carl Luer and the Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
LATE 
EARLY
Common Name The Moss-Like Platystele
Flower Size .12" [3 mm]
Found in El Oro province Ecuador in cloud forests at elevations around 950 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm growing epiphyte with ascending to erect, stout ramicauls enveloped by 1 to 2, thinsheaths and caryruing a single, erect to suberect, coriaceous, elliptic, obtuse to rounded, apiculate, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late summer and early fall on an erect, arising laterally from the ramicaul, peduncle filiform, rachis subcongested, .4 to .72" [1 to 1.8 cm] long overall, successively single, many flowered inflorescence with thin floral bracts.
"Similar to P ovalifolia but the habit is caespitose instead of repent. The inflorescence is also successively multiflowered and longer, much longer than the tiny cluster of leaves. The flowers are similar but the peatals are elliptical and proportionally broader and the apex of the lip is narrowly acute and incurved." 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/photo fide;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
