Palhinhaea steyermarkii (B. Øllg.) Holub (1991: 93)

Øllgaard, Benjamin & Testo, Weston, 2021, The Lycopodiaceae of Panamá, Phytotaxa 526 (1), pp. 1-66 : 58-60

6. Palhinhaea steyermarkii (B. Øllg.) Holub (1991: 93) . Fig. 26

Lycopodiella steyermarkii B. Øllgaard (1988: 149) .— Type: ECUADOR: Prov. Napo: Road Baeza–Tena , ca. km 23, ca. 2000 m, Øllgaard, Roth & Sperling 35959 (AAU holotype, QCA isotype).

Plants with long, slender, scandent, climbing, or creeping main axes, which give off lateral branchlet systems of spreading to flaccidly hanging, at least to 30 cm long branchlets. Main axes 1–1.5 mm thick excl. leaves, glabrous. Ultimate branchlets incl. leaves 4–5 mm in diam. Leaves of main axes distant, borne in drawn-out spirals or very irregular whorls, 8–12 seriate, acicular, semiterete to flattened, soft, with a long, slender tip, arcuate-ascending to appressed, 4–6 mm long, glabrous. Branchlet leaves softly to firmly herbaceous, arcuate-ascending to arcuate-appressed, 3–5 × ca. 0.5 mm, evenly tapering from the base, otherwise conform. Strobili to 9 cm long, ca 4 mm thick (with appressed sporophylls). Sporophylls borne in alternating whorls of 4, forming 8 longitudinal ranks, with coalescent sporophyll bases partly enclosing the sporangia, with lanceolate to lanceolate-ovate, 4–5 × 1–1.5 mm exterior face, with shallowly erose-denticulate margins, of herbaceous, green texture throughout. Sporangia globose, 1–1.2 mm wide.

Distribution:— Panamá, Venezuelan Guayana, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru.

Habitats:—Terrestrial or epiphytic in pluvial montane forest, 1900–2200 m.

Notes:—The strobili are remarkably long for this genus. They apparently remain meristematically active for a prolonged period, often having wilted and rotten sporophylls and empty sporangia at the stobilus base, and at the same time a fresh, actively developing strobilus apex.

­­­ Specimens­­­ studied:— Chiriquí: Near summit of Cordillera, on Holcomb’s Trail, above El Boquete, 1925 m, Killip 5367 ( US); same number: Chiriquí / Bocas del Toro : Bocas del Toro: E of the Río Caldera, 1900 m, ( GH, MO). Chiriquí/­­­Bocas­­­del­­­Toro: Trail along continental divide to ca. 3 km E of Cerro Pate Macho, epiphyte, 2000–2200 m, Smith et al. 2449 ( MO, NY, PMA) .