Platystele oxyglossa (Schltr.) Garay 1974
Photos by © Walter Schug
Photos by © Jay Pfahl
Drawing by Carl Luer
and 
Common Name The Pointed Lip Playstele
Flower Size 1/8" [3.5 mm]
Found from Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil in tropical rainforests, mountain rainforests and elfin forests at elevations of 2 to 2000 meters as a miniature sized, hot to cool growing epiphyte with very short, terete ramicauls enveloped basally by a single, transparent, tubular sheath and carrying a elliptic to obovate, coriaceous, fleshy, acute to obtuse leaf that is apically tridentate and gradually narrowing below into the cuneate petiole and blooms on a weak, suberect, loose, more or less flexuous, distichous, 1.6" [4 cm] long including the filiform, .4 to .8" [1 to 2 cm] long peduncle, succesively flowering [to 2 at a time], several [to 10] flowered inflorescence arising from the ramicaul with a tubular bract and below the middle and has thin floral bracts.
Similar to P dodsonii but it differs in the successively several, several flowered inflorescence with reddish-purple flowers. P oxyglossa has a successively single, several flowered inflorescence with light yellow green flowers.
Synonyms Platystele brasiliensis Brade 1951; Platystele lancilabris var. oxyglossa (Schltr.) Schltr. ?; Pleurothallis lancilabris var. oxyglossa (Schlechter) C. Schweinf. 1938; Platystele pygmaea (Hoehne) Pabst 1956; Platystele schulzeana (Schltr.) Garay 1974; *Pleurothallis oxyglossa Schltr. 1912; Pleurothallis pygmaea Hoehne 1933; Pleurothallis schulzeana Schltr. 1918;
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. 10(254-256): 354. Schlechter 1912 Repert. Sp. Nov. Regni. Veg. Beih. 19: 110. Costa Rica Schlechter 1923 as P schultzeana; Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated Vol 1 Dunsterville & Garay 1959 drawing fide; Flora de Venezuela Volumen 15 Parte 2 Foldats 1970 as P lancilabris var oxyglossa drawing fide; Orchidaceae Brazilienses Vol 1 Pabst & Dungs 1975 as P brasiliensis drawings fide; Orchidaceae Brazilienses Vol 1 Pabst & Dungs 1975 as P pygmaea drawing fide; Orchids of Venezuela An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 3 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 as P lancilabris drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing fide; cones Orchidacearum I Plate 86 Hagsater and Salazar 1990 drawing fide; Orchids Travel By Air A Pictoral Safari Mulder, Mulder-Roelfsema and Schuiteman 1990 photo fide; Native Colombian Orchids Vol 3 COS 1991 photo close; Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 3 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 drawing; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003 drawing good; Orquideas Nativas del Tachira Cesar Fernandez 2003 photo ok; Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003; The Organ Mountain Range, its History and its Orchids Miller, Warren Seehawer 2008 drawing fide; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko & Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Diversity of Pleurothallidinae in Guatemala: An Endangered Orchid Subtribe with High Economic and Horticultural Potentials Edgar Mo Mo, Cetzal, Basu and Vega 2017 photo fide; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018; Lankesteriana 19(1). 31 - 55 2019 photo ok; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide
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