Sylvia Strigari

Sylvia Strigari
The new refugium boTanicum
Rhynchostele hortensiae
Text by Franco Pupulin/Watercolor by sylvia strigari
Tribe Epidendroideae
Subtribe Oncidiinae
Genus Rhynchostele Blume
Rhynchostele hortensiae (Lucas Rodr.)
Soto Arenas & Salazar, Orquídea (Mexico
City), n.s., 13(1–2):149. 1993. Type: Costa
Rica. Cartago: Cult. León Glicenstein, 15
May 1978, R. Lucas Rodríguez C. 1560/1
(holotype, USJ; isotypes, AMES, F).
Synonyms: Odontoglossum hortensiae
Lucas Rodr., Orquídea (Mexico City), n.s.,
7(3):145. 1979. Cymbiglossum hortensiae
(Lucas Rodr.) Halb., Orquídea (Mexico
City), n.s., 9(1):2. 1983. Lemboglossum
hortensiae (Lucas Rodr.) Halb., Orquídea
(Mexico City), n.s., 9(2):349. 1984.
A shortly repent epiphytic herb to 40
cm tall. Roots glabrous, rugose, flexuous,
thick, to 5 mm in diameter. Pseudobulbs
elliptic–ovoid,
strongly
compressed
laterally, apically monophyllous, 4–8
× 2.5–4.0 cm wide, subtended by 2–4
sheaths that are foliaceous when young.
Leaves softly coriaceous, pale green to
grayish green, with the veins evident both
adaxially and abaxially, the central vein
abaxially more prominent, elliptic, acute,
apiculate, to 17 × 3–4 cm. Inflorescence
a lateral, few-flowered (3–6), laterally
compressed raceme borne laterally at
the base of the mature pseudobulb, 20–
45 cm long; the peduncle covered with
several long, carinate, glumaceous bracts.
Floral bracts glumaceous, narrowly
triangular–lanceolate, to 3.5 cm long.
Pedicellate ovary terete, about 3 cm long.
Flowers showy, spreading, with the sepals
pale green, transversely barred with
maroon, and the petals and the lip white,
bordered and spotted with maroon; the
callus yellow. Sepals subsimilar, free,
narrowly lanceolate, attenuate, with the
apices mostly recurved, 35–45 × 8–12
mm. Petals deltate, attenuate, with the
margins undulate, 3–4 × 1.0–1.5 cm.
Lip rhombic, attenuate, shortly adnate
to the base of the column by a narrow
claw, 2.5–3.5 × 1.8–2.3 cm, the margins
irregularly dentate; callus fleshy, pilose,
velutinous, erect, with two lateral keels
directed to the base and a central, longer
keel obtuse at the apex. Column fleshy,
subterete, slightly arcuate, ventrally
dilated at apex and around the stigma,
wingless, about 1.5 cm long. Anther
cap deeply cucullate, subglobose, two-
celled. Pollinia, two, ovate–subtriangular,
laterally compressed, bright yellow, on a
linear stipe and a brown, narrowly peltate
viscidium.
Costa Rican biologist and botanist
Rafael Lucas Ramón de Jesús Rodríguez
Caballero (1915–1981) was trained in
plant systematics at the University of
California in Berkeley, where he received
his PhD in 1954. After his return to Costa
Rica, he created a Department of Biology
at the University of Costa Rica, which later
became the School of Biology, which he
directed for 11 years, and gave lessons in
biology and botany. In 1977 he was the
recipient of the Magón National Award
to Culture, the highest recognition that
Costa Rica grants to its greatest artists and
scientists. He was the first honoree – and
still the only one – who has received the
award for his contributions in the field of
natural sciences. In 1978, the Dr. Rafael
Lucas Rodríguez Caballero Wildlife Refuge
was created at the head of the Nicoya
Gulf, in the hottest region of Costa Rica
(Morales 2003). A talented professor and
a recognized biologist, he organized the
rescue of Charles H. Lankester’s property
“El Silvestre” – which would later
become the Lankester Botanical Garden
– gathering the necessary funds, along
with the American Orchid Society and the
Stanley Smith Horticultural Foundation,
to present Lankester’s garden and orchid
collection to the University of Costa Rica.
(Ossenbach 2003, 2009).
His name is mostly recognized for the
outstanding series of more than 1,000
watercolors of Costa Rican orchids that he
painted during a period of more than 20
years, since the late 1950s (Pupulin and
Ossenbach 2005). A selection of these
extraordinary art works was published
by the University of Costa Rica in 1986
(Rodríguez et al. 1986).
Don Rafa, as his friends called
him (Dressler 1986), was not a prolific
author. Even though he prepared several
manuscripts devoted to the orchids of the
Central American isthmus, only a few of
his papers were published. One of them,
dated 1979, presents the description of a
new species of “Odontoglossum” endemic
to Costa Rica and dedicated to his wife,
Odontoglossum hortensiae (Rodríguez
1979). He was also the author of the
genus Ticoglossum (the word “tico” was
an homage to the Costa Rican people),
today synonymized with Rossioglossum
(Schltr.) Garay and G.C. Kenn.
The Central American species of
odontoglossum were long treated as
members of the true, Andean genus
Odontoglossum
(now
synonymized
with Oncidium), originally described
by Kunth on the basis of the Peruvian
Odontoglossum epidendroides. During the
1980s, Federico Halbinger become aware
that the odontoglossum species native to
the regions of the Mesoamerican isthmus
belong to different lineages, for which
he created the genera Cymbiglossum,
Mesoglossum,
Lemboglossum
and
Ticoglossum (Halbinger 1982, 1983,
1984). Most of these genera have a very
unfortunate and complicated taxonomic
history, and the Central American species
previously treated as Odontoglossum
have moved back and forth from one
to another of Halbinger’s genera for
a decade. Then, in 1993, Soto Arenas
and Salazar realized that the somehow
aberrant Rhynchostele pygmaea was just
a small member of the same group, and
that the genus Rhynchostele, created
by Reichenbach in 1852, had priority
over all the more recent segregates.
Molecular analyses corroborated this
relationship, showing that the species of
Rhynchostele are only distantly related
to Odontoglossum (now Oncidium), and
form instead a well-supported clade (to
which also belong species of Amparoa
and Mesoglossum), sister to Erycina in the
broad sense (Chase 2010).
Although Odontoglossum is centered
in the Andes, with most taxa recorded
from Colombia to Peru, Rhynchostele
has its center of diversity in Mexico,
where 13 species are known. Diversity
of Rhynchostele rapidly diminishes
southward, with two (or possibly three)
species recorded from Costa Rica,
and a single species (the widespread
Rhynchostele stellata) occurring in
Venezuela, in South America.
The field activity by Rafael Lucas
Rodríguez Caballero was apparently
quite limited, and he usually preferred
illustrating his orchids from plants that his
many friends brought him for study. The
original plant from which he described,
illustrated and painted Rst. hortensiae
was collected by Leon Glicenstein who,
www.AOS.Org january 2016 Orchids 15
region of the Talamanca chain in Chiriquí,
western Panama. Here, the plants of this
species inhabit the trunks and larger
branches of the trees of the wet, windy,
cool cloud forests in the premontane
and lower montane life zones forests,
where they are mostly found in bright
light conditions from 4,900 to 8,200
feet (1,500–2,500 m) (Mora-Retana and
Atwood 1993). In their native habitats,
the plants flower in April and May.
As most species of the genus
Rhynchostele, Rst. hortensiae can be
grown both on mounts and in pots,
with a well-draining medium, under
intermediate–cool conditions, with high
humidity throughout the year.
References
Rhynchostele hortensiae. The plant.
1. dissected perianth.
2. column and lip, three-quarters view.
3. The column, ventral view.
4. The anther cap and the pollinarium,
all drawn from F. Pupulin 7987 (jBL) by Franco Pupulin.
16 Orchids january 2016 www.AOS.Org
during the last of the 1970s and 1980s,
made an intense activity of collection,
study and artificial reproduction of rare
Costa Rican orchids.
Rhynchostele hortensiae is a showy
species, which in general morphology
is quite similar to Rhynchostele cordata
(also known from Costa Rica). However,
it can be easily distinguished by the color
pattern of the flower and by the lip shape,
which in the latter species is cordate
and abruptly acuminate, whereas in Rst.
hortensiae it is characteristically deltate
and acute.
The native habitats of Rst. hortensiae
are restricted to the mountainous regions
of central and southern Costa Rica, but it
can be expected also from the southern
Chase, M.W. 2010. Rhynchostele. Pp. 340–344. In:
A.M. Pridgeon, P. Cribb, M.W. Chase, and F.N. Rasmussen, editors. Genera Orchidacearum Volume 5:
Epidendroideae (Part II). Oxford University Press,
Oxford, England.
Dressler, R.L. 1986. Prologue/Prólogo. Pp. 10–13. In:
C.R.L. Rodriguez, D.E. Mora, M.E. Barahona, and
N.H. Williams. 1986. Generos de orquideas de Costa
Rica. Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, San
José, Costa Rica.
Halbinger, F. 1982. Odontoglossum y géneros afines
en México y Centroamérica. Orquídea (Mexico
City) 8:155–241.
_. 1983. Cymbiglossum, Ticoglossum y Rhynchostele,
tres géneros derivados de Odontoglossum en México
y Centroamérica. Orquídea (Mexico City) 9:1–12.
_. 1984. Lemboglossum, un nuevo nombre para el
complejo Odontoglossum cervantesii. Orquídea
(Mexico City) 9:347–354.
Mora-Retana, D.E. and J.T. Atwood. 1993. Lemboglossum hortensiae. Sub pl. 1541. In: D.E. Mora de
Retana and J.T. Atwood, editors. Orchids of Costa
Rica, Part 3. Icones Plantarum Tropicarum 16. The
Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Sarasota, Florida
Murales, C.O. 2003. El botánico y artista Rafael Lucas
Rodríguez (1915–1981): Reseña de su vida y su obra.
Lankesteriana 7:159–164.
Ossenbach, C. 2003. Breve historia de la orquideología
en Costa Rica. Editorial de la Universidad de Costa
Rica, San José, Costa Rica.
_. 2009. Orchids and orchidology in Central America.
500 years of history. Lankesteriana 9(1–2):1–268.
Pupulin, F. and C. Ossenbach. 2005. Orchidology in
Costa Rica. Pp. xi–xxx. In: F. Pupulin, editor. Vanishing Beauty. Native Costa Rican Orchids. Volume 1:
Acianthera-Kegeliella. Editorial de la Universidad
de Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica.
Rodríguez, C.R.L., D.E. Mora, M.E. Barahona, and
N.H. Williams. 1986. Generos de orquideas de Costa
Rica. Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, San
José, Costa Rica.
Rodríguez, R.L. 1979. Una especie centroamericana
inadvertida de Odontoglossum, Odontoglossum hortensiae Rodríguez. Orquídea (México)
7(3):145–154, .