Platystele perpusilla (Rchb.f.) Garay 1974

Photo by © Franco Pupulin

Drawing

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

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Common Name The Very Small Platystele [refers to the plant size]

Flower Size .2" [5mm]

Found in Costa Rica and Panama at elevations of 1300 to 1450 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3 thin, loose, imbricating sheaths and carrying an erect, coriaceous, narrowly obovate, subacute, narrowly cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late winter and early spring on an erect, distichous, filiform, to 1.8" [4.5 cm] long overall, rachis .8 to 1" [2 to 2.5 cm] long, loose, distichous, 3 to 4 simutaneously opening, several flowered inflorescence with thin, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.

"Distinguished by the little tuft of narrowly obovate leaves topped by a slender, several flowered racemes that produces 3 to 4 tiny flowers simultaneously.THe sepals and epetals are simple, each about .04" [1 mm] long, THe habit is reminiscent of P lancilabris, not Platystele oxyglossa . The distinctive ovoid lip is thickened at he apex by a low, longitudinal callus that extends from the back surface around the end into the acute, incurved tip." Luer 1990

Synonyms Humboltia perpusilla (Rchb.f.) Kuntze 1891; *Pleurothallis perpusilla Rchb.f. 1854

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946 as Pleurothallis perpusilla; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing fide to the drawing only; Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol 3 Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003; Vanishing Beauty, Native Costa Rican Orchids Vol 2 Lacaena to Pteroglossa Pupulin 2020 photo fide

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