MULFORD KXPLORATION OF THE AMAZON VALLEY 



219 



Renealmia Cardenasii 



Scnrfy-tomeiitollate, the stem slender. Sheath about 1 dm. 

 long, the petiole slender, about half the length of the sheath. 

 Leaf-blade about 4 dm. long, 8 cm. broad, lance-oblong or ob- 

 lanceolate, aljruptly and acutely short-pointed, thin, pale-green, 

 sparsely and finely scurfy. Scape erect, in fruit reaching a 

 meter in height, slender, l(>afless, invested by a series of about 5 

 loose sheaths a little shorter than their internodes, with broadly 

 rounded or subtruncate darker sunnnits. Flowering racliis about 

 a fourth or a third of the total length of the scape, densely or 

 loosely flowered. Bracts widely spreading, about 15 mm. long, 

 broadly oval, subtruncate or obtuse, subhyaline, 5-nerved. 

 Bractlet half the length of the bract, hyaline, truncate, cylin- 

 dric, open nearly to the base on one side. Flowers immature. 

 Fruit 3 em. long and half as wide, ellipsoid, about 40-ribbed. 

 Seeds 6 mm. long, including the short stipe, broadly obovoid, 

 irregularly and bluntly angular, brown, lustrous, very finely 

 verrucose. 



Rurrenabaque, 1,000 feet, M. Cardenas, October 7, 1921 (no. 

 844). 



Species near II. hreviscapa Poepp. & Endl. 



Costus rurrenabaqueanus 



Sheaths, lower leaf-surfaces, etc., minutely soft-puberulent, 

 the stem stout. Sheaths closely enclosing the stem, about 1 dm. 

 long, the sunnnit evenly and horizontally truncate, the blade at- 

 tached by a narroAv base about 4 or 5 mm. long and wide. Blade 

 (only the uppermost seen), 3 dm. long, 7 cm. wide, oblanceolate, 

 with regularly narrowed base and abruptly acuminate and acute 

 summit, pale-green beneath, deep-green above. Spike short and 

 broad, the thick, broad, many-nerved bracts obtuse. Calyx 3 cm. 

 long, 7 mm. wide, cylindric, thick, rigid, 3-lobed, the lobes short, 

 broad and obtuse. Labelhim 7 cm. long and nearly as broad, 

 deeply 3-lobed. Petals and labellum lemon-yellow. Petaloid 

 filament purple-red, more than half the length of the labellum 

 and half as wide as long. 



Rurrenabaque, 1,000 feet, Martin Cardenas, November 28, 

 1921 {no. 1882). 



Costus (?) sinningiaeflorus 



Hirsute, the leaf-sheaths, bracts and midribs ferruginous un- 

 derneath, the stems stoutish, densely leafy to the summit. 



