Gingersrus Database Taxon ID 3756Costus montanusCURRENT NAME: Costus montanus PROPOSED NAME: Costus montanus NAME CHANGE NOTES: FULL SCIENTIFIC NAME: Costus montanus Maas STATUS : accepted CONTINENT: Neotropical FIELD OBSERVATIONS:(If field observations are available, you can click on the link to open in a new window.) FIELD OBSERVATIONS PHOTOS:(If photos are available, you can click on the link to open in a new window.) GOOGLE PHOTO ALBUM SYNONYMS: BOTANICAL NOTES: Costus montanus is an accepted species of neotropical Costus described by Paul Maas in 1972. The holotype was collected from Costa Rica, Alajuela, San Pedro de San Ramon northwest of San Jose in 1937 by A. M. Brenes No. 22607. It grows to about 2 meters tall, has dense, soft hairs throughout and a very distinctive ligule with acutely triangular lobes 15-35 mm long. It is terminal flowering with red appendaged bracts, the tips of which are curled down and in. The calyx is well exposed behind the bracts. The flowers are tubular yellow to yellow-orange with densely hairy corolla lobes. Costus montanus is endemic to Costa Rica and found only in cloud forests in the mountainous regions of central and north-central Costa Rica with population centers around Monteverde, the Tilaran Mountains and the Talamanca Mountains near Cartago at altitudes ranging from about 1000 - 1700 meters. It can be found in flower year round, dry or rainy season. In 2014 I completed an IUCN Red List assessment for this species and it is now classified as Near Threatened. My assessment rationale can be found at http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/full/56347723/0. A partial phylogeny was completed by Eugenio Valderrama and his associates in the Chelsea Specht Lab at Cornell University and was published in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science in September 2022. Two of my collections of this species (R3371 and R3293) have been sampled for DNA extraction at Cornell University and included in the molecular phylogeny. It was found to be in a lineage closest to Costus barbatus.
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