Platystele schmidtchenii Schltr. 1924
Photo by Oliver Lenhard
Drawing by Carl Luer
to
Common Name Schmidtchen's Platystele [German Discoverer of Species late 19th cen]
Flower Size .24" [6 mm]
Found in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia at elevations of 1000 to 2400 meters as a miniature to small sized, cool to coldgrowing, miniature epiphyte with ereect, slender, ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 thin, ribbed, imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-obovate, subacute leaf that is narrowly cuneate below into the petiole and blooms on a strict, subdense, distichous, simultaneously many flowered, 3.2" to 6" [8 to 15 cm] long including the erect, slender, 1.2 to 2" [3 to 5 cm] long peduncle, racemose inflorescence arising laterally from the ramicaul and having loose, oblique, shorter than the pedicel floral bracts.
"A size variable species with the sepals .16" [4 mm] long, [described first as P schmidtshenii and a smaller form with .08" [2 mm] long sepals was named later P escobarii. The lips of both species are the same size, ergo P escobarii became a synonym of P schmidtchenii." Luer 1990
Synonyms Platystele escobariana Garay 1971
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Beitrage Zur Orchideenkunde Von Colombia 27:166 Schlechter 1924; Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Series II plate 0273 Dodson & Vasquez 1989 drawing maybe; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 photo hmm; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko & Bermudez 2009 photo not; A Compendium Of Miniature Orchid Species Vol 2 Parsons & Gerritson 2013 photo hmm;
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