Platycoryne mediocris Summerh. 1958 Photo by © Lourens Grobler

LATE EARLY

Common Name The Modest Platycoryne

Flower Size .8" [2 cm]

Found in Burundi, Zaire, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe at elevations of 200 to 1600 meters in damp grasslands and Brachystegia forests as a small to medium sized, warm growing growing terrestrial orchid with ellipsoid to almost globose, sparsely tomentose tubers giving rise to an erect, somewhat flexuous, slender, leafy throughout, terete stem carrying 6 to 10, the lowermost 1 to 2, reduced to sheaths, the rest suberect to spreading, small towards apex leaves that blooms in the late spring and early summer on a short, to 2" [5 cm] long, densely 2 to 7 flowered inflorescence with broadly lanceolate, acuminate, shorter than the ovary floral bracts.

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Flora of Tropical East Africa Part 1 Summerhayes 1968; The Orchids of South Central Africa Williamson 1977 drawing/photo fide; Flore D'Afrique Centrale [Zaire- Rwands - Burundi] Orhidaceae Premeir parte Geerink 1984; Flora Zambesiaca Vol 11 Orchidaceae Part 1 Pope 1995; Field Guide to the Orchids of Northern South Africa and Swaziland McMurty, Grobler, Grobler & Burns 2008; Orchidaceae of West Central Africa Vol 1 Szlatchecko etal 2010 drawing fide

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