94 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
Series 4, Volume 65, 28 Sept. 2018, No. 2 
8. Louteridium parayi Miranda, Ceiba 4:140. 1954. Type.— MEXICO. Chiapas: cerca del 
Suspiro, unos 9 km NO de Berriozabal [ca. 16°52’36.21”N, 093°19’34.53”W], 950 m, selva alta 
siempre verde, 9-VI-1953 (fir, frt), L. Par ay & F. Miranda 7834 (holotype: MEXU-00029822!; 
isotypes: F!, MEXU-00029828!). 
Shrubs or trees to 3 m tall, epiphytic or epipetric. Older (woody) stems subquadrate to sub- 
terete, lenticellate, lacking trichomes; younger (herbaceous) stems quadrate-sulcate, glabrous. 
Leaves not all seasonally deciduous, evenly distributed along stems, petiolate, petioles to 20 mm 
long, blades coriaceous-sub succulent, oblanceolate to obovate, 50-200 mm long, 15-63 mm wide, 
3.3-5 x longer than wide, acute-apiculate (to caudate) at apex, attenuate to long-attenuate at base, 
adaxial surface glabrous, abaxial surface with scattered flexuose to antrorse eglandular trichomes 
to 1 mm long (or sometimes nearly glabrous), margin entire. Inflorescence a terminal pedunculate 
thyrse to 27 cm long (including peduncle and excluding corollas), peduncle 3.5-15 cm long, 
glabrous, rachis glabrous; dichasia modified by sympodial expansion and appearing like dichoto¬ 
mous branches with zig-zag nodes, alternate, pedunculate, 1-many-flowered, to 100 mm long 
(excluding corollas), dichasial peduncles to 55 mm long, glabrous. Bracts caducous, lance-ovate to 
elliptic, 7-15 mm long, 4-8 mm wide, abaxially glabrous. Bracteoles and secondary bracteoles per¬ 
sistent, ovate to ovate-elliptic to broadly elliptic, 6-11 mm long, 5-7.5 mm wide, abaxially 
glabrous (or inconspicuously glandular-punctate), those of a pair connate along one side for up to 
1/2 their length and proximally subsaccate, sometimes conspicuously imbricate. Flowers pedicel¬ 
late, pedicels to 30 mm long, glabrous. Calyx 24-39 (-A8 in fruit) mm long, lobes heteromorphic, 
apparently subsucculent, abaxially glabrous, posterior lobe conduplicate, oblong to subelliptic to 
oblanceolate, 22-45 mm long, longer than lateral lobes, 7.5-14 mm wide, saccate or with a flap¬ 
like appendage to 2.5 mm long at base, rounded to acute at apex, lateral lobes lance-ovate to lance- 
linear to linear-oblong, 19-44 mm long, 5-8.8 mm wide, acute at apex. Corolla pale greenish, 45- 
72 mm long, externally glabrous, tube 25-35 mm long, narrow proximal portion of tube 0.5-3 mm 
long, 6-8.5 mm in diameter near midpoint, throat 24-33 mm long, 28-40 mm in diameter at mouth, 
lobes spreading to recurved, subtriangular to broadly ovate, 8-21 mm long, 10-17 mm wide, 
rounded and emarginate at apex. Stamens 2, 70-90 mm long, filaments glabrous distally, densely 
pubescent at base with eglandular trichomes, thecae 13-17 mm long; staminodes (if present) not 
seen. Style 74-90 mm long, glabrous, stigma unequally 2-lobed, lobes ovate to linear-elliptic to lin- 
ear-oblanceolate, 2.5-6 mm long, 1.1-2.8 mm wide. Capsule 27—40 mm long, 5.5-7.2 mm in diam¬ 
eter, glabrous, stipe 5-13 mm long. Seeds up to 18 per capsule, 4.5-5 mm long, 4.3^4.5 mm wide, 
surfaces smooth or with irregular ridges. 
Phenology. — Flowering: April-December; fruiting: June-December. Flowers of Daniel & 
Wendt 5804 were observed to be fully open after dark. 
Distribution and habitat.— Southern Mexico (Chiapas, Veracruz; Fig. 8); plants occur on 
slopes on limestone (often karstic) in lowland rain forests, lower montane rain forests, and mon¬ 
tane rain forests at elevations from 100 to 1500 meters. 
Illustrations. — Figures 4G, H, 16; Miranda (1954:141). 
Conservation. — Louteridium parayi has an EOO of 2,210 km 2 . Plants occur in at least one 
large protected area in Chiapas, and the EOO includes another small one in Verazcruz. Frequency 
information on collections varies from locally infrequent to locally frequent. Known occurrences 
reveal two subpopulations separated by ca. 110 km. Historical landsat imagery (1984 to 2017) via 
Google Earth Pro (2018) reveals that the habitat of the western subpopulation in the Uxpanapa 
region of Veracruz has undergone extensive conversion from forested land to local agriculture and 
pasturage. The same imagery does not clearly show a similar large-scale conversion of forest in the 
