Ah, the cloud forest - an enjoyable trip and a whole swack of new photos. I'm pretty sure that these are primarily Anthuriums, with perhaps a few Philodendrons thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately for ID purposes, very few of the plants were in bloom. Fortunately for those of you interested in juvenile forms, they were young plants. Opinions and ID's, please? The most exciting part for me is that I suspect I may have found some juvenile forms of the hotly debated A. angamaracum. As has been pointed out in the other thread (ps, photopro, why not move that into this forum?), these were extremely tall-stemmed plants with an arboreal habit. All of these photos were taken within about 800 meters of each other at an elevation of roughly 1400 meters in the Mindo-Nambillo protected forest, where humidity is about 88% and temperature ranges between 18 and 30 degrees Centigrade. I have exact latitude and longitude for interested parties, bearing in mind that this is protected forest and the caretakers frown heavily on sampling the plants. The area is classed as montane and pre-montane cloud forest, and gets over 4m of rain yearly. Leaf blades average around 1 meter in length for the long-bladed types, and about 70 cm by 40 cm for the rounder-bladed types (exception for the very young plants), and plants were evenly divided beteween arboreal and terrestrial growth patterns. Steve, do you happen to know which direction Dr. Croat went when he was collecting here last time? I've been finding the Western slopes of the Andes to be richer than the Eastern ones, and definitely more diverse than the full tropical jungle biomes. Then again, it may simply be a function of where I've been looking. This said, I'm really looking forward to going back to the Mindo-Nambillo area, bugbites be darned.
And bringing up the rear..... I'm not sure that the very last photo here actually is an aroid; while the leaf shape is consistent with the Anthuriums, the plant was exhibiting more than one leaf per stem, and the pubescence reminded me of the Urticea (nettles.)
i'm absolutely no help on id's. just wanted to thank you for posting the pics - they're wonderful!! looks like you had an enjoyable (and fruitful) trip!
When Tom was there is August and September he was all over the country. He is working on new species up near Colombia, over on the Andes slope and down in the region bordering with Peru. Neat photos!
Ok folkies - since you are the ones frequenting Aroid World here; would you be interesting in seeing an "Aroid Week" on the blog?
Okay folkies! Better late than never - Aroid of the Week day is Friday, and the first Aroid of the Week is the hotly debated A. angamarcanum. More to come!
Did you post a photo? I missed it! I can write a bunch about this one but I'll give others the first shot!
I posted the leaf and inflorescence photos. If you click the "I Speak For The Trees" link in my sig, it should pop up as today's entry. Otherwise you may need to refresh the page.
I would! But I've never figured out how to move a thread! I started that one before the aroid forum was started. Tell me how to move it and I will! Several of your photos in post # 1 do appear to be A. angamarcanum. The fourth in the first one is likely a Philodendron. Nice photos by the way! Anthurium angamarcanum is one of the most variable of all aroids in Ecuador so you'll surely find a bunch of shapes and sizes up to around 2 meters (6 feet) and possibly larger. In your second post one appears to be a Xanthosoma but I have no idea what species. You also have several photos of plants I'd go for a hike in the rain forest in my wheelchair to find and collect! Outstanding! Let some others put in their discussions on these and I'll do what I can to fill in the blanks with info Dr. Croat and Dr. Ron Kaufmann have given me. By the way, I can send you both of their email addresses if you'd like to shoot for ID's. Of course, if you send them to Ecuagenea you'll likely do just as well.
If you tell me which ones you want, I can culture them in my new garden, and once I'm established I'm going to get a phyto for export so I may even be able to send them along! The Aroid of the Day is HERE (Clicky Linky! on my personal blog. I thought about it, and your concept of keeping personal notes on a website really hit home. I'm awash in plants and I'll forget them if I don't do something. I've never been able to move a thread - I think you have to be a moderator to do it. It should pop up in "thread tools" but it doesn't for me. Please do send the email addresses on, I'd love to correspond with them, since I live here in Anthurium Central. And thanks for the comment on the photos - coming from a professional photographer, it means a lot.
My other obsession is textiles, and I have been saying 'Fortuny' a lot here. Then I looked at the 'aroid of the week', and said 'theatre and Fortuny'. That huge leaf is a ready designed opera cloak, I wish I still had the youth and the figure(and had ever had the lifestyle) to copy it in fabric, and wear it.
