The New Refugium Botanicum. Stenia dodsoniana

Abstract

Stenia dodsoniana Pupulin, Harvard Pap. Bot. 12: 8. 2007. TYPE: Ecuador. Without collecting data, a plant grown by Ecuagenera at Gualaceo flowered in cultivation at Jardín Botánico Lankester (JBL), Universidad de Costa Rica, accession No.13525, 2 November 2006, F. Pupulin 6340 (holotype, JBL-Spirit). Epiphytic, caespitose herbs without pseudobulbs. Roots terete, thick, flexuous, produced from the short rhizome. Stem abbreviated, enclosed by 3–4 imbricating sheaths, provided with hyaline margins becoming scarious with age, the upper ones foliaceous. Leaves conduplicate, articulate, membranaceous, broadly elliptic-oblanceolate, obtuse to rounded, 6–10 × 2.5–3.5 cm, lightly veined, abaxially sharply carinate, narrowed at the base into a distinct, conduplicate petiole to 3.5 cm long, dark green, the abaxial surface paler. Inflorescence lateral, a singleflowered raceme produced from the axil of the lower sheaths, to 2 cm long; the peduncle terete, slender, laxly pendent, basally provided with a tubular-imbricating, papyraceous bract, ca. 5 mm long. Floral bract double, conduplicate, the external one widely ovate-suborbicular, obtuse, membranaceous, loose, 5 × 7 mm, the subopposite internal bractlet lanceolate, acute, 6 × 4 mm.