Platystele pedicellaris (Schltr.) Garay 1974
Photos courtesy of Belize Botanic Gardens © and their Belize Botanic Garden Webpage
Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name The Long Pedicel Platystele
Flower Size .24" [6mm]
Found in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Costa Rica at elevations of 350 to 1500 meters as a mini-miniature sized, hot to cool growing epiphyte with a very short ramicaul enveloped by several, scarious, whitish sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, broadly ovate to oblanceolate-spatulate, obtuse, retuse and apiculatae apically, gradually narrowing below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on an erect, slender, congested, distichous, 1 to 1.2" [2.5 to 3 cm] long including the .4 to .6" [1 to 1.5 cm] long peduncle, successively few, successively single, several flowered inflorescence arising laterally on the ramicaul with thin, shorter than the pediceel floral bracts.
"Easily distinguished from P oxyglossa by the long-pedicelate, congested, non-flexuous raceme and the relatively broad, minutely ciliate petals. The flowers vary greatly in size, the sepals and petals ranging in length from .08 to .24" [2 to 6 mm] l The larger flower forms have been confused with P propinqua. Luer 1990
Synonyms *Pleurothallis pedicellaris Schltr 1912
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orchids of Guatemala and Belize Ames & Correl 1952 as Pleurothallis pedicellaris; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing ok; Guatemala Y Sus Orquideas Behar & Tinschert 1998 photo good; Icones Orchidacearum 5-6 Plate 638 Hagsater, Soto 2002 drawing first photo is better second has the concave lip still checking; 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; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide
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