Diastatea costaricensis, McVaugh, Bull. Torrey Bot.

8. DIASTATEA COSTARICENSIS McVaugh, Bull. Torrey Bot. View in CoL Club 67: 789. 1940. TYPE: COSTA RICA. Prope San Jose , November 1846, A. S. Ørsted 9238 (holotype: C-image!; isotype: C-image!).

Stems 5.5–48 cm tall, simple or with few to many ascending branches, 0.8–2.5 mm wide at base, minutely winged; wings ciliate with flattened trichomes. Leaves sessile or pseudo-petiolate below, sessile above; blades green to purple, base rounded to cuneate, decurrent into narrow wings, apex rounded to narrowly acute; lowermost blades ovate, 2.8–5.5 mm long, 2.5–3.5 mm wide, the margins regularly serrate with prominent teeth; middle to upper blades narrowly lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, 8–33 mm long, 1.1–4.2(–5.5) mm wide, margins irregularly serrate; glabrous throughout or ciliate on margins with sparse hairs adaxially and on the veins abaxially. Inflorescences strongly secund with few to 10 flowers per stem; bracts narrowly elliptic to linear, 4.5–20 mm long, 0.6–2 mm wide, ascending to appressed. Flowers with pedicels 2.2–10 mm long in flower, minutely pubescent, ascending and often bent distally in fruit; hypanthium a flattened disc in flower, 1–1.5 mm in diameter, 0.4–1 mm in length from calyx sinus to attachment point with pedicel, not much expanded in fruit, glabrous; calyx lobes equal, more or less equaling fruit in length, narrowly triangular, 2.5–4.7 mm long in flower, green, purple, or green with purple tip and teeth, margins entire or rarely with 1–2 pair of teeth below middle, strongly ciliate; corolla purplish-blue, nectar guides yellow with raised projections at throat; tube broadly cylindrical, 3–4 mm long from calyx sinus to lateral corolla sinus, 1.2–2 mm wide at middle; dorsal lobes broadly triangular, 1.3–1.5 mm long, 0.5 mm wide; ventral lobes rounded spatulate, 1.5–2 mm long, 1 mm wide; filaments 2.8–3.7 mm long; anthers 0.7–1 mm long, purple-brown with a few scattered hairs near apex of dorsal set, two large and many small white trichomes at apex of ventral anther pair, the margins between adjacent anthers white. Fruits ovoid, 4.5–6.2 mm long, 2.0– 3.2 mm wide, light brown or purplish; seeds ellipsoid, 0.5 mm long, orange-brown. Figure 4F View FIG .

Chromosome Number —Unknown.

Distribution — Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Honduras. Not documented from southern Mexico ( Fig. 6 View FIG ).

Notes —All of the sheets examined for this study lacked stigmatic lobes exserted from the anther tube. This species may be autogamous with only rare outcrossing events. A discussion of individuals with intermediate morphologies is included under D. maximiliana .

As McVaugh noted in his revision of Laurentia ( McVaugh 1940b) , Wimmer erroneously identified Oersted 9238, the type collection of D. costaricensis , as conspecific with Oersted 9246, the type of Lobelia irasuensis Planch. & Oerst. , collected on Volcan Irazu at the same time. Because of this error in identification, Wimmer made two subsequent combinations first in Laurentia as L. irasuensis (Planch. & Oerst.) E.Wimm. ( Standley 1938) and then in Diastatea as D. irasuensis (Planch. & Oerst.) E.Wimm. ( Wimmer 1948) . Therefore, D. irasuensis Lobelia irasuensis and thus is treated here as an excluded taxon.

Additional Specimens Examined — Costa Rica. — PROV. ALAJUELA: Loc. Zarcero, Canton Alfaro Ruiz, 11 Jan 1939, Smith 1435 (NY); La Palma de San Ramon , 23–26 Oct 1922, Brenes 3777 (NY); San Rafael de San Ramon , 23 Dec 1927, Brenes 5910 (NY). Guatemala. — DEPT. GUATEMALA: Cerro del Carmen, Nov 1865, Bernoulli 146 (NY). — DEPT. SANTA ROSA: Estanzuela, Nov 1892, Smith 4257 (GH, NY). Honduras. — DEPT. MORAZÁN: Mountains between Monta na ~ Uyuca and La Monta nita ~, 27 Dec 1962, Williams et al. 23239 (GH, LL, MO, NY); In the fields on the west slope of Mt. Uyuca, 29 Dec 1949, Williams 17045 (GH); Bosque mixto entre Cuesta de Los Muertos y Monte Obscuro, La Monta nita ~, 27 Dec 1962, Molina R. 11169 (NY). — DEPT. EL PARAÍSO: 2 km northwest of Guinope €, near Manzaragua road, 27 Feb 1949, Standley 17257 (MO, NY); 3 km NW of G uinope €, 27 Feb 1949, Williams & Merrill 15693 (MO); 2 miles NW of G uinope €, 5 Jan 1947, Williams & Molina R. 11523 (GH, MEXU, MO).

Doubtful and Excluded Taxa — Diastatea lemairei E.Wimm., Pflanzenr. (Engler) 4, 276b: 386. 1953. Diastatea ghiesbreghtii (Lem.) E.Wimm., Ann. Naturhist. Mus. Wien View in CoL 56: 333. 1948. Lobelia ghiesbreghtii Lem., Ill. Hort. 1: pl. 34. 1854. non Decaisne. 1848. Dortmanna ghiesbreghtii (Lem.) Kuntze, Revis. Gen. Pl. View in CoL 2: 972. 1891 as Dortmannia . TYPE: unknown.

Notes —This species was included in Wimmer’ s (1953) treatment as Diastatea lemairei E. Wimm. , originally described under the name Lobelia ghiesbreghtii Lem. by Lemaire (1854). Descaisne had already used the name Lobelia ghiesbreghtii in 1848 to describe a different plant, rendering Lemaire’ s name illegitimate in the genus Lobelia .

Lemaire’ s original description included an illustration, a discussion on its merits as a cultivated plant, and instructions on how to cultivate it. He described it as having pink-lilac corollas, which set it apart in the greenhouse from its congeners that had blue corollas. In addition to the pink corollas, he described the pedicels as being bibracteolate towards the base and the corolla being split to the middle. Otto Kuntze (1891) later transferred Lemaire’ s L. ghiesbreghtii to Dortmannia ghiesbreghtii .