Plant Datasheet for Costus comosus var. comosus-maritimus

I have seen this form at the type location on the shores of the Golfo Dulce and on the Pacific coast near Drake. It is also recorded near Dominical and on the Isla del Cano. The cultivar 'Cliff Dweller' is a variety of this species with pure green bract appendages. Other forms, including the type, have varying amounts of red in the bract appendages.

In 2011 I collected seeds from a plant at La Gamba Research Station in Costa Rica with green bracts, triangular green appendages and an appearance very much like the plant I saw at Cabo Matapalo (PID 7376) that has tubular yellow flowers. The La Gamba plant was not in flower when collected, but has turned out to be the form of Costus comosus mentioned by Maas as Costus maritimus as an obsolete synonym. That plant was collected very near to La Gamba on the delta of the Rio Esquinas at Golfo Dulce in Costa Rica. The upper side of the leaves on the La Gamba plant have a very soft pubescence and felty feel due to the dense minute hairs.

In 2013 I returned to Costa Rica and found this plant in two other places. Near Drake on a large boulder was a plant with an old dried inflorescence that was consistent with the La Gamba plant and the 'Cliff Dweller' plant at Cabo Matapalo. Farther down the beach at the resort Cabo Corcovado, this plant was cultivated and had much more red color in the bracts and bract appendages. A few days later I was at a place near Los Mogos on the Golfo Dulce and there is a large population of this species there, with mostly green but splashes of red coloration in the bracts and bract appendages. In each case this species seems to grow only on very steep rocky slopes. I searched above the steep bluffs for these plants and did not find them there, only on the steep slopes along the shores of the Golfo Dulce and Pacific Ocean.

ACCESSION NOTES:
R3212 is from the botanical garden at Tropenstation La Gamba, collected locally along the cliffs of the Golfo Dulce in Costa Rica by Werner Huber of the University of Austria.

R3291 is from a plant growing in leaf mulch on top of a large boulder at Punta Marenco near Drake on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.

R3292 was collected from near Los Mogos on the Golfo Dulce, near where the type collection was made for Costus maritimus. R3212 has been vouchered at the UC Berkeley, Jepsen Herbarium, UC2045823.