Platystele umbellata P. Ortiz 1978 SUBGENUS Platystele
Photo by © Jay Pfahl.
Photo courtesy of Patricia Harding.
TYPE Drawing by Padre Pedro Ortiz.
Common Name The Umbellate Platystele [refers to the inflorescence]
Flower Size 1/32" [2mm]
Found in Antioquia department of Colombia at elevations of 600 to 1600 meters as a miniature sized, warm to cool growing epiphyte with erect, slender, ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 thin, ribbed, imbricating sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, elliptic-spathulate, rounded, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter and spring on a very congested, umbellate, simultaneously 5 to 9 flowered, .44 to .64" [1.1 to 1.6 cm] long including the .4 to .6" [1 to 1.5 cm] long peduncle, racemose inflorescence arising from above the middle of the ramicaul and has loose, imbricating, oblique, as long as the ovary floral bracts.
"The umbel is composed of several, overlapping, minute, simultaneous flowers, one of the smallest of the genus. The tiny, obtuse sepals and petals are ciliate and the ovate, cellular-glandular lip is a trifle larger that the lateral sepals, the margins are not revolute and the apex is rounded," Luer 1990
Similar to Platystele ortiziana, P beatricis, and P dasyglossa as thay all have umbellate inflorescence.
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; *Orquideologia Vol 12 No 2/3 1977/8 photo/drawing fide; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol VII Systematics of Platystele Luer 1990 drawing fide; Orquideas de la Serrania del Baudo Misas Urreta 2006 as Platystele sp #353 drawing/photo fide; Orquideas de la Serrania del Baudo Misas Urreta 2006 as P sp [353] drawing good/photo fide; Orquideologia Vol 25 #2 2008 photo fide; Orquideeologia Vol 26 No 1 2009 photo fide; Orchid Species of Peru Zelenko & Bermudez 2009 photo fide; Mille et Une Mini Orchideees Roguenant 2009 photo fide; A Compendium Of Miniature Orchid Species Vol 2 Parsons & Gerritsen 2013 photo fide?;
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