MONSTERA ALFAROI
PROTOLOGUE: Monstera alfaroi Croat & M.Cedeño, published in Nordic Journal of Botany 38-e02970: 2 (2020).
Monstera alfaroi Croat & M. Cedeño, sp. nov. Type: Costa Rica, San José: Tarrazú county, San Lorenzo district, road from Tarrazú to Quepos, 9°34′57,47″N, 84°4′2,53″W, 1400 m, 22 Oct 2019, M. Cedeño 1702 (holotype USJ!; isotype MO!, to be distributed).
DISTRIBUTION: Costa Rica: Costa Rica.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Costa Rica: Puntarenas, San José.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Robust nomadic vine with appressed-climbing habit. Seedlings: bearing foliage leaves. Juvenile plants: root climbers; appressed-climbing; stem dark green, cylindrical or dorsally flattened, with whitish-green pustules making a rough-warty surface; internodes 1–15 cm long, 5–10 mm diam.; petioles partly concealed by the leaf blades or not at all, light green, warty, 3–16 cm long, sheathed to base of the geniculum; petiole sheath deciduous; blades not appressed to the phorophyte, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate at the apex, coriaceous, 9–20 × 8–13 cm, fenestrations absent. Adult plants: root climbers; stem with black and dark green pustules, cylindrical; internodes 1–2 cm long, 2–3 cm diam., 0.5–0.6 times as long as wide; anchor roots blackish; feeder roots blackish; petiole brown or rarely light green at base, with brown black and white pustules, 40–70 cm long, sheathed along their entire length; petiole sheath undulate, persistent or deciduous; geniculum warty throughout, flattened adaxially and transversally convex abaxially, 2.0–2.5 cm long; blades narrowly ovate, rounded or asymmetric at base, shortly acuminate at the apex, subcoriaceous, with entire margins and few fenestrations, 60–90 × 30–45 cm, drying dark brown and weakly lustrous, not decurrent on the geniculum; midrib concave adaxially, convex abaxially, drying black or yellowish; primary lateral veins 8–13 per side, diverging at 50–70°, impressed adaxially, prominent abaxially; secondary veins parallel to the primary lateral veins; collecting veins poorly visible; fenestrations present (weakly perforated near the midrib); margins entire.⁴
INFLORESCENCE:
Inflorescences produced on ascending stems; peduncle with green or brown pustules, 20–35 cm long; spathe obtuse or acuminate, light green in developing inflorescences, internally white and externally light green at anthesis, 13–20 × 8–14 cm; spadix white during development, white or yellowish white at anthesis, 10–15 cm long, 1.2–2.5 cm diam.; basal sterile flowers 4–5 mm long; fertile flowers 5–7 mm long; stamens 2–7 mm long, with laminar filaments; anthers 2.0–2.5 mm long; ovary quadrangular in longitudinal section, ribbed; style hexagonal, 1.2–2.5 mm long, truncate; stigma linear; berries with the stylar cap after anthesis white, white-cream when ripe; pulp white; seeds black, 3–6 mm long.⁴
ECOLOGY:
It is distributed in the Pacífic Central, Tarrazú, and south in the Fila Chonta and Fila Costeña, at 1100–1250 m. It occurs in Lower montane rain forest life zone. Flowering has been recorded in February, October and November, and fruiting in January.⁴
NOTES:
1. This species is a member of sect. Monstera. It differs from other Costa Rican species in having light brown petioles with black or white warts throughout their length, and the sheath wavy and warty, then promptly deciduous, as well as leaf blades that are coriaceous and scarcely fenestrated, and inflorescences with the peduncle warty and the spathe light green externally. It is most closely related to Monstera buseyi, with which it shares tuberculate petioles. Most collections of Monstera buseyi differ from Monstera alfaroi in having narrowly ovate-elliptic leaf blades 2.0–2.5 times longer than wide which dry medium grayish yellow-brown above and much paler (yellowish green) and often matte below, although some collections have blades only 1.7 times longer than wide which dry dark brown. Also, Monstera buseyi has flowering spadices only 6–9 cm long and ca. 1 cm diam., versus more than 18 cm long and 2 cm diam. in Monstera alfaroi. Finally, Monstera buseyi has peduncles drying matte and smooth or only weakly puberulentscurfy, whereas those of Monstera alfaroi dry grossly ridged and pitted and covered by conspicuous tubercles. Monstera alfaroi can also be confused with Monstera costaricensis, but the latter has petioles with white pustules and markedly wavy and persistent wings, and flowers with markedly conical styles. Monstera alfaroi is restricted to the Pacific slope of the Cordillera de Talamanca, while Monstera costaricensis occurs only in the Caribbean lowlands (below 600 m elevation) of Costa Rica.⁴
2. Conservation status: Monstera alfaroi is protected in the Parque Internacional de La Amistad.⁵
STORY:
STORY TITLE: Described already threatened
Monstera alfaroi was published in 2020 from the road between Tarrazú and Quepos on the Pacific slope of the Cordillera de Talamanca, in a paper whose title names the threat: the expansion of coffee plantations.² It survives in a small area of La Amistad International Park, but the habitat around it is strongly impacted by agricultural expansion and the authors assessed it as Endangered.² Monstera tarrazuensis, described in the same paper from the same road, is found in no protected area at all and was assessed as Critically Endangered.²
The plant is recognized by light brown petioles studded with black or white warts along their whole length, a wavy, warty and promptly deciduous sheath, leathery and scarcely fenestrate blades, and a warty peduncle under a spathe that is light green outside.⁴ Its closest relative is Monstera buseyi, which shares the tuberculate petioles but has far smaller flowering spadices and smooth peduncles.⁴
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Monstera alfaroi Croat & M.Cedeño
2. Nordic Journal of Botany 38-e02970: 2 (2020) — protologue.
3. iNaturalist: Monstera alfaroi
Additional photos from iNaturalist by LostInCR and Marcel Esquivel