Dave Looks for Plants

When I returned to Rancho Mastatal and the Parque Nacional La Cangreja, I did see many more Costus plants in flower, as expected.  There was lots of Costus laevis as well as others including Costus villosissimus, Costus glaucus, Costus pulverulentus, Costus guanaiensis, and Costus scaber.  Below is the C. guanaiensis form seen along the road a short distance from Rancho Mastatal.

 

One day Chepo and I took the long, strenuous hike to the summit of Cerro Cangrejo.  Along the trail to the top the only Costus I saw was C. pulverulentus but the view was fabulous, with the rainforest of the National Park in the foreground and the Pacific Ocean in the distance.

Across the road and down a little way from Rancho Mastatal is a property owned by a man named Leo who agreed to show me around.  Leo was convinced that I was there like most tourists to see the animals such as pecaries……

and monkeys.

There was an unusual looking form of Costus laevis at Leo’s place, with predominantly orange flowers instead of red.

 

The form of C. pulverulentus found at Leo’s place was very hairy whereas others in the area were nearly totally glabrous.  This exemplifies the fact that the indument (hairiness) on Costus spp. tends to be variable within a species.

 

Tags: Costus glaucus, Costus guanaiensis, Costus laevis, Costus pulverulentus, Costus scaber, Costus villosissimus

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under #03-Costa Rica: Aug. 2006. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.