Platystele orectoglossa P. Ortiz 1979 SUGEN Platystele Photo courtesy of Eric Hunt Copyright © 2005 All rights reserved.

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Common Name The Extended Tongue Platystele

Flower Size 1/4" [8mm]

Found in Colombia and Ecuador in cool damp cloud forests at elevations of 1830 to 3000 meters as a miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3, thin, ribbed, imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, petiolate, elliptical, subacute to obtuse leaf that is cuneate basally into the petiole that blooms in the fall on a loose, flexuous, distichous, successively few [2 to 3 at a time] to many flowered, racemose inflorescence arising laterally on tha ramicaul. This plant is abundant in the central cordillera of Colombia but less so in the eastern Ecuador area and the plants and flowers can be quite variable throughout it's range.

References W3 Tropicos Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Systematics of the Pleurothallidinae Vol 1 1986; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Systematics of Platystele Vol 7 1990; Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 4 Dodson 2003;