Thibaudia costaricensis Hoerold

  • Authority

    1909. Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 42: 311.

  • Family

    Ericaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Thibaudia costaricensis Hoerold

  • Type

    Type: Costa Rica. San José: La Palma, 1500 m, Wercklé 20 (holotype, B?).

  • Description

    Species Description - Usually epiphytic shrubs, branches elongate to 2 m long; branchlets terete, cinerous, glabrous. Leaves chartaceous or thin coriaceous, oblong or lanceolate-oblong, to elliptic, (10-)12-24 x (1.7-)3.5-5(-7.5) cm, basally cuneate, apically caudate acuminate, marginally entire and slightly revolute, superficially glabrous or with inconspicuous glandular strigillose trichomes on both the surfaces; 5-plinerved, the secondary nerves originating near the base, the midvein impressed above and prominently raised beneath, the veinlets reticulate and slightly raised on both the surfaces; petioles glabrous, 2-3(-4) mm long. Inflorescences axillary or cauliflorous, numerous, racemose, or paniculate, 15-30-flowered; rachis slender, 2-5 cm long, laxly and sparsely puberulous or glabrous; pedicel reddish or pinkish, subterete, glabrous or puberulous, distally slightly swollen, 10-16 mm long; floral bract minute, deciduous, 1-1.5 mm long; bracteoles 2, submedial, deciduous 0.8-1.2 mm long. Flowers with the calyx rugose, sparsely puberulous or glabrous, pinkish to roseate, ca. 2 mm long and 2.5 mm in diam.; hypanthium campanulate; calyx limb erect or spreading, 1-2 mm long including the lobes; lobes acute, 0.5-1 mm long, sometimes cartilaginous; corolla 9-10 mm long and 3-3.5 mm diam., cylindric, white, slightly contracted at the base and at the throat, the lobes 1-1.5 mm long; stamens 10, ca. 7 mm long, equal or almost so; filaments brown, membranaceous, firmly connate into a glabrous tube 2-3 mm long; thecae smooth to slightly granular, ca. 2 mm long; tubules wide, flexible, completely free ca. 3 mm long opening introrsely by elongate, oval clefts about 1/2 as long as the tubule; stigma broadly peltate, ca. 1 mm in diam.; style exserted 1-2 mm at maturity.

    Distribution and Ecology - Endemic to the mountains of central Costa Rica and W Panama. Cultivated E (?).