Platystele Platystele steyermarkii Luer 1994

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

Common Name Steyermark's Platystele [American Botanist and Orchid Collector in Venezuela 1900's]

Flower Size .01" [2.5 mm]

Found Sucre state of Venezuela in in lower ridge forests at elevations around 700 to 900 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 3, thin, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical-obovate, subacute to obtuse, narrowly cuneate below into the slender petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter on an erect, arising from near the apex of the ramicaul, peduncle .4 to .6" [1 to 1.5 cm] long, rachis .4 to .72" [1 to 1.8 cm] long, loose, flexuous, distichous, successively single, several flowered inflorescence with shorter than the pedicels floral bracts.

"This species, known only from a Venezuelan collection by Steyermark, is most closely allied to P. stenostachya, but P. steyermarkii is distinguished by the ramicauls proportionately shorter in relationship to the leaves; a loose, flexuous raceme of successive flowers that eventually surpasses the leaf; acute sepals; and narrowly linear petals. The lips of the two species are similar. The racemes of P. stenostachya are short and very congested, and never surpass the leaf in length. The sepals are otuse and the petala are not linear." Luer 1994

Synonyms

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XI Systematics of Lepanthes Subgenus Brachycladium and Pleurothallis Subgenus Aenigma, Subgenus Elongata and Subgenus Kranzlinella Luer 1994 Drawing fide;

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