Platystele myoxura Luer & Hirtz 1990

Photo by © Alexander Hirtz

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

EARLY

Common Name The Mouse-Tail Platystele [refers to the apex of the lip]

Flower Size .4" [1 cm]

Found in Napo province of Ecuador at elevations around 1850 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with a slender, erect ramicaul enveloped by 2 to 3 thin, ribberd, imbricating sheaths with a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptic-obovate, subacute leaf that is cuneate towards the petiole and blooms in the summer on a weak suberect, secund, filiform, 6" [15 cm] long including the .8 to 1.6" [2 to 4 cm] long peduncle, distantly successively several flowered inflorescence arising laterally from the ramicaul with thin, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts

"The flowers are comparatively large and distantly spaced in the long, weak raceme. The long attenuate sepals and petals are not unusual but the lip is distinctive. The blade is ovoid with a pair of longitudinal carinae and the obtuse apex is abruptly contracted into a tail that resembles the tail of a mouse." Luer 1990

Synonyms

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 photo fide

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