Platystele ovatilabia (Ames & C. Schweinf.) Garay 1974 subgen Platystele

Photo courtesy of Dale and Deni Borders.

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Common Name The Ovate Lip Platystele

Flower Size 1/8" [2.5 mm]

This miniature sized,, caespitose, warm to cool growing epiphytic species is found in cloud forests at elevations of 900 to 1300 meters from Mexico to Panama with an erect, slender ramicaul enveloped by 2 to 3 tubular sheaths with a single, apical,erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical-obovate, subacute to obtuseleaf that is narrowly cunneate to the indistinct petiole that blooms on an erect, slender, 2" [5 cm] long, racemose, successively many flowered inflorescence with hyaline bracts and 4 to 5 simuiltaneously opening flowers that are held well above the leaves and occur in the spring.

Synonyms *Pleurothallis ovatilabia Ames & C. Schweinf. 1930

References W3 Tropicos [http://mobot.mobot.org/W3T/Search/vast.html] , Kew Monocot list [ http://www.kew.org/wcsp/home.do ], IPNI [ http://www.us.ipni.org/ipni/plantsearch?request_type=search&output_format=query&ret_defaults=on ]; Icones Orchidacearum 5 - 6 Orchids of Mexico Part 2 - 3 Plate 637 Hagsater & Soto 2002

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