Platystele reflexa Luer 1981
Photos by © S Manning and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
TYPE Drawing by Carl Luer
Common Name The Back-Bent Platystele [refers to the sepals and petals]
Flower Size .2" [5 mm]
Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador in cloud forest at elevations of 1300 to 1650 meters as a small sized, cool growing, caespitose epiphyte with an erect, stout ramicaul enveloped by 2 to 3 short, ribbrd imbricating sheaths with a single apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, epetiolate, narrowly ovoid, semiterete to fusiform, acute leaf that blooms in the spring on an erect, slender, .92 to 1" [2.3 to 2.5 cm] long incl, racemose, successively 1 to 2, many flowered inflorescence with hyaline, shorter than the pedicel bracts.
"Closely allied to P stenostachya but most distinct is the twice larger flwoers with acutely reflexed, lateral sepals and petals." Luer 1990
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 drawing fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 89 #1 2020 photo fide
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
