Platystele taylorii Luer 1976
Photos by © Kevin Holcomb
TYPE Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
LATE 
Common Name Taylor’s Platystele [English discoverer of species Died 2011]
Flower Size .1” [2.5 mm]
Found in Panama province of Panama and El Oro province of Ecuador at elevations around 650 to 1800 meters as mini-miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with an erect, slender ramicaul enveloped by 1 to 2, thin, tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptical-obovate, obtuse, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the late winter through summer on an weak, suberect, loose, .6” [3 cm] long including the .12 to .4” [3 to 10 mm] long filiform peduncle, successively few flowered inflorescence arising laterally from the ramicaul with thin floral bracts.
"This extremely minute species is one of the smallest of the genus. Tiny clumps of obovate leaves produce hair-like peduncles to about twice their length, but a flowering plant still reaches less than .4" [1 cm] in height. The nearly microscopic yellow flowers with a bright red lip are produced singly in a slow succession. All the flower parts are acuminate or caudate, the petals linear, the sepals and lip ovate. The long-pointed lip is slightly larger than the sepals. A piece of bark bearing about eight tiny clumps of these miniscule plants was discovered by Peter Taylor in the rain forest on the flank of Cerro Jefe east of Panama City. They have continued to flower intermittently in cultivation at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens.' Luer 1976
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; * Selbyana Vol 3 30 Luer 1976 Drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing fide; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003 drawing fide; Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018
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