MONSTERA LENTII
PROTOLOGUE: Monstera lentii Croat & Grayum, published in Phytologia 82: 46 (1997).
Monstera lentii Croat & Grayum, spec. nov. Type: COSTA RICA. Cartago: 10 km S of Cartago by air, along confluence of Rio Empalme and Rio Estrella, 1 km S of Palo Verde by road, 9° 46’ N, 83° 57’ W, 1450 m, Liesner & Judziewicz 14549 (HOLOTYPE: MO-3116693–4!; Isotype: RSA!).
DISTRIBUTION: Costa Rica to W. Panama: Costa Rica, Panama.
DISTRIBUTION NOTE: Costa Rica: Cartago iNaturalist: Cartago, Heredia, San José.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Robust nomadic vine, appressed-climbing habit. Seedlings: bearing foliage leaves. Juvenile plants: root climbers; stems dark green, smooth, cylindrical; internodes 3–10 cm long, 2–5 mm diam.; petiole visible, dark or light green, smooth, 8–14 cm long, sheathed to base of the geniculum; petiole sheath persistent; blades obovate, subcordate to truncate at base, acuminate at apex, subcoriaceous, 8–14 × 7–11 cm, not appressed to the phorophyte, collective veins distinct; fenestrations absent or present. Adult plants: root climbers; stems light green, dark or light brown, smooth, cylindrical; internodes 2–4(35) cm long, 1.0–3.5 cm diam., 0.5–1.1 times as long as wide; cataphylls light green, deciduous but leaving dry fragments on the peduncle; anchor roots black; feeder roots light-brown; petiole light green or strongly speckled with white dots, smooth, 25–75 cm long, sheathed to base of the geniculum; petiole sheath persistent, revolute, open or closed; geniculum smooth, slightly sulcate adaxially, convex abaxially, 1.0–2.5 cm long; blades ovate to oblong, broadly cuneate to rounded or subcordate at base, acuminate at apex, subcoriaceous, drying reddish, black with reddish dots, light-brown or shiny-black, 25–60 × 17–45 cm, 1.4–1.6 times longer than broad, decurrent on geniculum, decurrent portion 1–3 mm wide; midrib ribbed adaxially, convex abaxially, drying reddish, light brown, or black on both surfaces; primary lateral veins 10–25 per side, forked or trifurcated, sunken adaxially, strongly prominent abaxially, departing midrib at 65–75°, drying reddish, black or light brown; secondary veins parallel, reticulate towards the margin, undulate in most of its length when dry; collective veins not visible; fenestrations absent or present, arranged along the midrib; margins entire, pinnatilobed or deeply pinnatifid, with 2–9 lobes per side of 2–15 cm wide.⁴
INFLORESCENCE:
Inflorescences on ascending stems, 2–4 simultaneously at flowering time, arranged in the axils of the leaves or into cataphylls; peduncle smooth, 7–25 cm long; spathe acuminate, light green during development, yellowish green externally and white internally at anthesis, completely open at apex, light-brown, marcescent at the end of anthesis, 12–20 × 6–10 cm, up to 10 cm longer than the spadix; spadix white during development, cream at anthesis, 5–15 × 1–4 cm, 3.5–5.0 cm times longer than wide; basal sterile flowers 4–5 mm long, with a rust-red stigmatic secretion; fertile flowers 5–8 mm long; stamens 2–7 mm long, with laminar filaments; anthers 1.5–2.0 mm long; ovary flattened, rectangular in longitudinal section, ribbed, 4–5 × 2–3 mm; style hexagonal, 4–5 × 3–4 mm; stigmatophore strongly conical, slender, 2–5 mm long; stigma circular, with a transparent stigmatic secretion; berries with a light-green stylar cap during development, mature stylar cap creamy-yellow; pulp white; seeds black with reddish dots, globose, 4–6 mm long.⁴
ECOLOGY:
Monstera lentii ranges from Costa Rica to western Panamá, and closely along the continental divide, north of the Cordillera de Talamanca, at 1050–1650 m, in Premontane rain forest life zones. Flowering has been recorded in February–April, July, and December, and fruiting in February– March, July–August, and November.⁴ Closed inflorescences of Monstera lentii were surveyed at Cerro de La Carpintera (Cartago), at 1810 m, in September 2010, in an area of Lower Montane Wet Forest and Premontane Wet Forest life zones.⁸
ETYMOLOGY:
Dedicated to Roy W. Lent, then a resident of Costa Rica, who made the first known collection of the species on 16 April 1967.²
NOTES:
1. The species, a member of sect. Monstera, is characterized by its petiole mottled or light green, the petiolar sheath persistent with open wings, the leaf blade entire or pinnatilobed with few fenestrations, externally yellowish spathe and slender flowers toward base with circular stigma, elevated by strongly and narrowly conical stigmatophore (a unique characteristic among species of the genus). Previously, Monstera lentii was confused with Monstera dissecta, but the latter is distinguished by the conical form of the stigmatophores and its distribution in cloud forests in the Pacific sector of the Talamanca mountain range. Populations of Monstera lentii in the foothills of the Turrialba Volcano have white or speckled petioles, pinnatilobed leaf blades without fenestrations, the spadix stipitate for 1–2 cm and without a region of sterile flowers, and cylindrical stigmatophore with round stigma. These populations could represent a different species, as the populations around the type locality and the Central Valley do not have these characteristics. The populations in western Panama are separated by a considerable distance from those in Costa Rica and Panamanian specimens have stigmas which dry yellowish and have leaf blades that are often more noticeably pinnatifid adult blades with lobles up to 2–4 cm wide, but these differences would not seem sufficient for recognition at the species level.⁴
2. Conservation status: Monstera lentii is protected in the Reserva Indígena Chirripó, Zona Protectora Cerros de La Carpintera, Zona Protectora Río Navarro-Río Sombrero, Zona Protectora Río Tiribi, Parque Nacional Tapantí, Parque Nacional Braulio Carrillo, and Parque Internacional de la Amistad.⁵
STORY:
STORY TITLE: The one that can self
Monstera lentii is the second species in the genus, after Monstera obliqua, to have had its pollination followed through a full cycle in the wild, in the mountains of Costa Rica.⁶ The cycle took eight to nine days. The female phase lasted three days and the male phase two, the female phase being the longer of the two, the reverse of most bisexual aroids.⁶ On the second day of the female phase the slit of the spathe closed and held the insects inside, though an opening sometimes remained near the tip.⁶ Each chamber held on average 97 beetles of a single nitidulid species, Cychrocephalus corvinus, together with about 28 drosophilid flies (Drosophila monsterae);⁸ the beetle belongs to a tribe known mainly as palm pollinators and had never before been recorded pollinating anything.⁶ Stingless bees also came, but as pollen robbers.⁶ The chamber warmed by two to four degrees, with no distinct peak at pollen release.⁶
The surprise was in the bagging. Six of eleven inflorescences bagged before opening set fruit, on average a tenth of their flowers, and not one inflorescence aborted.⁶ In Monstera obliqua, by contrast, every bagged inflorescence aborted and most of the open ones did too.⁷ Two field studies in one genus, one strictly outcrossing and one self-compatible, and no third to break the tie. Larvae were seen at the base of the spadix, but whether the beetles breed in the inflorescence was not investigated.⁶
The floral chamber itself had gone unrecorded in the genus for a century and a half. Dried specimens do not show it, and in the understory it is green and easy to miss; it becomes conspicuous only when it opens white, by which time the cycle is over.⁶ The authors read the system as convergent not with Philodendron but with neotropical palms: a chamber, a little heat, and nitidulid beetles.⁶
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Monstera lentii Croat & Grayum
2. Phytologia 82: 46 (1997) — protologue.
3. iNaturalist: Monstera lentii
Additional photos from iNaturalist by Alejandro Juarez, Jake Rehage, prodewald, Steven Wang, Harold Steven Hernández, Jo Jiménez, Arianna Mora, jcabarcap, Merav Vonshak, Pablo Alejandro Montero Herrera and emata1975
Additional photos from Wikimedia Commons by Jacob Rehage, Jacob Rehage and Jacob Rehage
