Platystele psix Luer & Hirtz 1992

TYPE Drawing Photo by Alexander Hirtz and TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer © and the Epidendra Webpage

Common Name The Little Bit Platystele

Flower Size .1" [2.5 mm]

Found in Ecuador and Peru at elevations of 450 to 1800 meters as a mini-miniature sized, hot to cool growing epiphyte with suberect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 to 3 thin, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, suberect, broadly elliptic, subacute, cuneate below into the subpetiolate base leaf that blooms in spring on an erect, loose, disitichous, slender, .8 to .84" [2 to 2.1 cm] long including the .32 to .36" [8 to 9 mm] long peduncle, successively few flowered inflorescence arising laterally from the ramicaul with thin, much shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.

Similar to P oxyglossa but distinguished by the minute habit and smaller flowers with the sepals and petals cellular ciliate and cellular-pubescent. It is also similar to P taylorii but the lip of P psix is only half the size of the sepals instead of larger." Luer 1992

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol IX Systematics of Myoxanthus Luer 1992 drawing fide; Icones Orchidacearum Peruviarum Plate 347 Bennett & Christenson 1995 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 drawing/photo fide

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