PHILODENDRON BENITEZIAE
PROTOLOGUE: Philodendron beniteziae , published in Aroideana 9: 84 (1986).
Philodendron benitezii Croat, sp. nov. Type: Venezuela. Táchira: Dtto. Junín, Quebrada El Libano, about 800 m, Benitez de Rojas 1241 (MY, holotype; F, isotype). Fig. 164
DISTRIBUTION: NW. Venezuela to Ecuador: Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION:
Scandent hemiepiphyte; internodes 1.5–6 cm long, ca. 5 mm wide, moderately smooth, drying green, striate, matte, bearing a few short roots on the flowering branches; cataphylls absent; petioles sheathing stems, 10–14.5 cm long, sulcate and less than 2 cm diam. at apex; sheath narrow and inconspicuous, extending to within 1 cm of the apex, the end narrowly rounded; blades narrowly oblong-elliptic to oblong-oblanceolate, 11–19.5 cm long, 3–5.5 cm wide, narrowly acuminate at apex, acute at base, drying green; midrib sunken above, raised beneath; primary lateral veins 7–9 pairs, obscure above, weakly visible on lower surface on drying; interprimary veins about as conspicuous as the primary lateral veins; minor veins weakly visible (drying weakly wrinkled); blade margins drying minutely revolute.
INFLORESCENCE:
INFLORESCENCE solitary, drying reddish brown; peduncle to 2 cm long, less than 5 mm diam.; spathe tube oblong-elliptic, to 1.7 cm diam. (dried); spathe blade white; pistillate spadix ca. 3.5 cm long, ca. 1.5 cm diam.; stigmas drying conspicuously bowl-shaped, brown, 0.7–0.9 mm diam.; male spadix ca. 3.5 cm long (the apex lost). FRUITS not seen.
ECOLOGY:
Described from a single collection at about 800 m in Táchira, Venezuela. Grayum's 1996 revision records it mostly, if not exclusively, above 1600 m, from Táchira State through Colombia to Carchi Province, Ecuador.³
ETYMOLOGY:
Named in honor of Carmen Emilia Benítez de Rojas (1937–2019), the Venezuelan botanist at the Instituto de Botánica Agrícola in Maracay who collected the type specimen. The Latinized epithet beniteziae means “of Benítez,” the feminine genitive marking the honoree as a woman.
NOTES:
1. Philodendron benitezii is a member of section Pteromischum and is characterized by a slender, green striate stem, small, narrow, conspicuously acuminate leaves with an inconspicuous petiolar sheath extending to within 1 cm of the base of the blade, and by its small, solitary inflorescence. It is closest to small-leaved plants of Philodendron inaequilaterum, which may have leaf blades of similar shape and a similar inconspicuous sheath, but that species has conspicuous primary lateral veins arising at 65–80° angle from the midrib. In contrast, Philodendron benitezii has inconspicuous primary lateral veins arising at a 45–50° angle from the midrib.
2. Croat published the name as Philodendron benitezii for the collector Carmen Emilia Benítez de Rojas. Because the epithet commemorates a woman, its ending is corrected to the feminine beniteziae, the spelling under which the species is now accepted.
STORY:
STORY TITLE: A single Andean collection, and the botanist whose name it carries
When Thomas Croat described this small climbing aroid in 1986, he named it for the person who had made the only gathering anyone had seen: Carmen Emilia Benítez de Rojas, a Venezuelan botanist at the Instituto de Botánica Agrícola in Maracay. Her collection, numbered 1241, came from Quebrada El Líbano in the Distrito Junín of Táchira, in the Venezuelan Andes, at about 800 meters.²
Later collections extended its known range from Táchira through Colombia to Carchi Province, Ecuador, mostly above 1600 m.³ A slender hemiepiphyte of section Pteromischum, it climbs on short, striate internodes, carries narrow, sharply acuminate leaves with a barely visible sheath, and bears a single, solitary inflorescence in each leaf axil.² Because Benítez de Rojas was a woman, the epithet Croat first wrote as benitezii is corrected to the feminine beniteziae — so that the grammar of the name itself points back to the botanist who found the plant.¹
REFERENCES:
1. Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Philodendron beniteziae
2. Aroideana 9: 84 (1986) — protologue.