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PLANT FAMILY: Costaceae
|Want to buy some rare gingers? Check out my commercial site. CLICK HERE to see what is available.|
CLICK HERE for a detailed botanical description and identification key for this species (opens in new window).
PLANT FAMILY: Costaceae
BOTANICAL NAME: Costus zamoranus
FORMAL SCIENTIFIC NAME: Costus zamoranus Steyerm.
This is an accepted neo-tropical Costus species first described in 1963. It is very similar to Costus amazonicus and can be distinguished only by the shorter calyx. It is described as a basal flowering plant whereas C. amazonicus can be either terminal or basal.
It was assessed as "Vulnerable" on the IUCN Red List in 1997. I completed an updated assessment in 2014 and maintained its status Vulnerable, but this mostly based on incomplete information. The assessment with further details can be found at http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/45121/0
I had never seen this species either live or in photos until February 2015 when I went to the type locality in Valladolid as noted below. Note that the Isotype as det'd by Maas in 1970 was sterile and there was no description of the flower until his 1977 addenda. It is very difficult to tell whether collection records are correctly identified.
Vouchered at NYBG Herbarium - http://www.nybg.org/bsci/hcol/vasc/Costaceae.html
In February 2015, I traveled to southern Ecuador to learn more about Costus zamoranus - This species is endemic to southeastern Ecuador. It is poorly described, very close to the species C. amazonicus and C. laevis, and I had never been able to find any verified photos of it, so my primary goal of this trip to Ecuador was to find this species. The only way to be sure I found the right plant was to go to the remote type location in the Mayo-Chinchipe region at the town of Valladolid. Thanks to the help of Marco JimÃ©nez - Leon and his father Marco Jimenez, we found it there and a few other places as well. I have prepared a thumbnail sheet with the photos at Valladolid and found athttp://www.gingersrus.com/images/R3324
After leaving Valladolid we traveled along the road toward the community of Tapala. Most of this area was deforested but there were a few patches of forest and there we found more Costus zamoranus. We also found a terminal flowering plant with a strong affinity to C. zamoranus and other terminal plants with appendaged bracts that would place in the diverse C. aff. claviger group that is found all along the eastern foothills of Ecuador and Peru. After examining my photos and reflecting a bit, I think the terminal flowering plant, despite its lack of bract appendages, is closer to the C. aff. claviger group than to C. zamoranus. This mainly due to the apex of the stamen - an important flower part. Photos of these are at http://www.gingersrus.com/images/R3326
The third place we saw this species was east of Palanda near the Rio Numbala at 925 meters. Based on our observations, this species was only foun