MONSTERA COSTARICENSIS
PROTOLOGUE: Monstera costaricensis (Engl. & K.Krause) Croat & Grayum, published in Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 74: 659 (1987).
Monstera costaricensis (Engl. & K.Krause) Croat & Grayum, Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 74: 659. 1987. ≡ Rhodospatha costaricensis Engl. & K.Krause in Engl., Pflanzenr. IV.23B (Heft 37): 95. 1908. Type: COSTA RICA. [Limón:] Ferme de Boston, Atlantic watershed, 30 m elev., [10°01’ N, 83°15’30”W], August 1901, A. Tonduz 14628 (holotype B!, photo F!).
SYNONYMS:
HOMOTYPIC SYNONYMS: Rhodospatha costaricensis Engl. & K.Krause
DISTRIBUTION: Nicaragua to Panama: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Robust nomadic vine, appressed-climbing habit. Seedlings: bearing foliage leaves. Juvenile plants: root climbers; stems dark green with greenish-white pustules which form a rough-verrucose surface, cylindrical or dorsally flattened; internodes 3–13 cm long, 3–10 mm diam.; petiole distinct, light-green, rough, 5–13 cm long, sheathed to base of the geniculum; petiole sheath deciduous; blades lanceolate, truncate or attenuate at base, acuminate at apex, thinly coriaceous, 8–18 × 4–9 cm, not appressed to the phorophyte; fenestrations absent. Adult plants: root climbers; stems dark green with greenish-white pustules which form a rough-verrucose surface, dorsally flattened; internodes 2–3 cm long, 2.0–3.5 cm diam., 0.8–1.0 times as long as wide; cataphylls with thick-undulate margins, dark green with green or white pustules, marcescent; anchor roots grayish; feeder roots black; petiole dark green with greenish-white pustules along their entire length, rough-verrucose, 30–70 cm long, sheathed to base of the geniculum; petiole sheath persistent throughout or from the medial part towards the geniculum, markedly undulate; geniculum rough-verrucose, flattened adaxially, convex abaxially, 2.0–3.5 cm long; blades narrowly ovate to lanceolate-ovate, broadly cuneate to truncate at base, spiral-acuminate at apex, thin coriaceous to coriaceous, drying grayish, blackish or greenish, 40–75 × 15–35 cm, 2.0–2.7 times longer than wide, slightly decurrent-undulate up to medial part of the geniculum (4–6 undulations of 2–3 mm wide); midrib slightly ribbed adaxially, convex abaxially, drying black on both surfaces; primary lateral veins 30–55 per side, bifurcated, strongly sunken adaxially, prominent abaxially, departing midrib at 45–65°, drying black or yellowish, secondary veins slightly prominent and reticulate; collective veins prominent; fenestrations absent or present, arranged near midrib; margins entire (slightly undulate) pinnatilobed due to tearing of the perforations that extend to the margin, with 2 lobes per side.⁴
INFLORESCENCE:
Inflorescences on ascending stems, 1–3 simultaneously at flowering season, arranged in the leaf axils or into cataphylls; peduncle rough-verrucose, 10–17 cm long, 1.0–1.5 cm diam.; spathe obtuse or mucronate, light green during development, white internally and cream externally at anthesis, 9–15 × 8–13 cm, equal or 2 cm longer than the spadix; spadix cream during development, green to yellowish at anthesis, 8–14 cm long, 1.2–2.5 cm diam., (4.1)6–7(10.6) times longer than wide; basal sterile flowers 3–5 mm long; fertile flowers 4–7 mm long; stamens 3–7 mm long, with laminar filaments; anthers 2.0–2.5 mm long; ovary quadrangular in longitudinal section, ribbed; style hexagonal, thickly conical, 1.2–2.5 mm long; stigma linear; berries with a yellow stylar cap during development, mature stylar cap cream; pulp white; seeds ovoid.⁴
ECOLOGY:
Monstera costaricensis ranges from Nicaragua to Panama, at 0–1047 m in Tropical wet forest life zones. Flowering January, March-May, August, October, and fruiting in April and May.⁴
ETYMOLOGY:
The epithet refers to Costa Rica, where the type was collected in 1901 at Ferme de Boston on the Atlantic watershed of Limón Province.⁴
NOTES:
1. The species is a member of sect. Monstera and is characterized by its dark green, matte, densely and finely tuberculate internodes; minutely and abundantly whitish-dotted and tuberculate-roughened petioles, sheath revolute along the margin, extending to base of the blade and conspicuously undulate along its length onto the geniculum and to base of the blade, narrowly ovate to lanceolate-ovate, never pinnately lobed leaf blades that are 2.0–2.7 times longer than broad with the margins entire and with most larger leaves with 1–3 holes, as well as by an inflorescence with the peduncle longer than the spathe with minute whitish dots or tubercles. Monstera costaricensis is most similar to Monstera buseyi which differs by its more or less asperous-verruculose petioles and reddish-brown drying blades with 4 or 5 pairs of lateral lobes and 15 to 50 primary lateral veins per side and with Monstera alfaroii which is distinguished by its tuberculous petiole, a persistent and thickly wavy sheath, and a conical style.⁴
2. Conservation status: Monstera costaricensis is protected in the Refugio de Vida Silvestre Mixto Gandoca-Manzanillo, la Estación Biológica La Selva, el Refugio Nacional Barra del Colorado and the Reserva Biológica Alberto Manuel Brenes.⁵
STORY:
STORY TITLE: Filed under the wrong genus
The type of Monstera costaricensis was collected by Tonduz in August 1901 at Ferme de Boston on the Caribbean watershed of Limón and described in 1908 as a Rhodospatha.⁴ It stayed there for nearly eighty years. Croat and Grayum had already annotated Costa Rican material with the unpublished name Monstera undulata before realizing that the species had a name in Rhodospatha, and in 1987 they transferred it.⁵
The supposed isotypes at the British Museum and Kew, both under Tonduz's number, are not this species at all but Spathiphyllum friedrichsthalii; the holotype in Berlin does match the description.⁵ The plant is recognized by densely and finely tuberculate stems, petioles dotted with white and roughened, a sheath that runs revolute and conspicuously wavy all the way onto the geniculum, and narrow blades with one to three holes.⁴
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Monstera costaricensis (Engl. & K.Krause) Croat & Grayum
2. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 74: 659 (1987) — protologue.
3. iNaturalist: Monstera costaricensis
Additional photos from iNaturalist by Ocean Fleskes, Nate Hartley, Dustichi and helen6458