Platystele orectoglossa P. Ortiz 1979 SUGENUS Platystele
Photo by © Eric Hunt
TYPE Drawing by Padre Pedro Ortiz
to 
Common Name The Extended Tongue Platystele
Flower Size .32" [8mm]
Found in Antioquia and Valle de Cauca departments of Colombia on the central cordillera and Carchi and Zamora-Chinchiope provinces of Ecuador in cool damp cloud forests at elevations of 1750 to 3000 meters as a miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3, thin, ribbed, imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, petiolate, elliptical, subacute to obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the fall on a loose, flexuous, distichous, .8" [2 cm] long including the .12 to .36" [3 to 9 mm] long suberect peduncle, successively few [2 to 3 at a time] to many flowered, racemose inflorescence arising laterally on tha ramicaul.
This plant is abundant in the central cordillera of Colombia but less so in the eastern Ecuador area and the plants and flowers can be quite variable throughout it's range. The raceme is more or less flexuous. The comparatively large flowers are distinctive with the narrowly ovate, acute sepals and petals surrounding a large, protruding, deep purple, spindle-shaped lip with thick revolute margins and a central longitudinal sulcus." Luer 1990
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Orquideologia Vol 14 No 1 1979 drawing/photo fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 drawing fide;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
