A. Ixyophora viridisepala (Pupulin 5941); B. Stenotyla picta (Pupulin 3027); C. Euryblema anatonum (Pupulin 6282); D. Zygopetalinae species, probably belonging to a undescribed genus (Pupulin 6605); E. "Chondrorhyncha" thienii (Pupulin 6281); F. Chondrorhyncha hirtzii (Pupulin s.n.); G. Chondrorhyncha inedita, watercolor of the type flower, Schlim 34 (Courtesy of the Orchid Herbarium, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew); H. Chondrorhyncha sp., Colombia, watercolor from Iconografía Mutisiana, pl. 464 (courtesy of the Real Jardín Botánico, Madrid).

... the new systematic arrangement of genera previously included under a broad Chondro- rhyncha improves the predictability of generic placement in the case of dubious and not yet sampled species. Chondrorhyncha velastiguii Dodson was originally described and illustrated by Dodson in 1989 on the base of a plant collected along the Río Negro in eastern Ecuador ( Dodson and Dodson, 1989; Fig. 5, F). To my knowledge, the species has been collected only five times after the original col- lection, always from the eastern Ecuadorian provinces of Morona-Santiago, Pastaza, and Tungurahua. In realigning Chondrorhyncha and the allied genera, Whitten et al. (2005) had no material to sample C. velastiguii and include it in the data matrix, but they suggested it can likely considered a true species of the genus Chondrorhyncha s.s. I recently had the opportunity to study living material of C. velastiguii from Ecuador, and the vegetative morphology, as well as the shape of the lip callus (Fig. 10) and the pollinarium agree with the set of characters now considered diagnostic for the genus Ixyophora, so requiring a new nomenclatural combination for C. ...

... a good taxonomic system improves the recognition of anomalous patterns. Whitten et al. (2005) were not able to obtain material of Cochleanthes thienii Dodson for their study, and they considered this species to be possibly congeneric with the two known species of Euryblema. However, the recent examination of new living specimens of C. thienii (Fig. 5, E) revealed several morphologi- cal traits that are anomalous with respect to the diagnostic characters of the genus Euryblema. The leaf sheaths of Euryblema are heavily spotted and blotched with purple, but this feature is absent in plants of C. thienii. The lip of C. thienii is deeply cymbiform and provided with a central, narrow callus, con- trasting with the open lip of Euryblema, provided with a broad, laminar callus. Also, the pollinarium of Euryblema has a large, sagittate stipe and a ventrally distinct, ligular, thick viscidium (Pupulin, 2007), whereas in C. thienii the stipe is small, shield-shaped, and the viscidium is a large but scarcely distinct adhesive pad (Fig. ...

... molecular data have the beneficial effect of reminding botanists that new species are nothing more than scientific hypotheses, and such data provide a revolutionary method to test them. This is true, of course, not only for the complex of genera and species close to Chondrorhyncha and not only because of molecular systematics. Although frequently neglected, the need to compare morpho- logical information with data sets from other disciplines (i.e., biochemistry, cytology, anatomy, ecol- ogy, etc.) has been generally recognized among the requisites of standard taxonomic practice. While examining Zygopetalinae specimens during a recent visit to Ecuador, I found a species that apparently does not fit any of the known genera related to Chondrorhyncha (Fig. 5, D). The large, yellow flower has a distinctly three-lobed lip with a laminar callus restricted to the center of the blade, and the pol- linarium includes a large viscidium provided with lateral teeth and a cuspidate, sigmoid stipe (Fig. 12), two features not previously recorded among the Zygopetalinae. On the basis of morphological comparison, I strongly suspect that this not only represents a new species but an undescribed genus in Zygopetalinae. Names in the "Chondrorhyncha complex" by far exceed the actual number of species, and it is perhaps advisable to refrain from the urgency to describe new taxa in this group without the necessary evidence. Now, we fortunately have more tools to test our hypotheses, and as soon as permits for molecular analyses are issued by the Ecuadorian authorities, we will sequence this hypothetical new genus to place it into the phylogenetic framework of ...

... about Chondrorhyncha? It is unfortunate that, more than two centuries after the first western botanists discovered a plant of Chondrorhyncha, our knowledge of this genus is still fragmen- tary owing to the lack of available material for many of the taxa. We have now a better picture of what is not a true Chondrorhyncha, and we can, by default, infer some information about this genus. Chondrorhyncha s.s. is strictly South American in distribution, ranging from Venezuela to Bolivia along the western slopes of the Andes, with a probable center of diversity in northwestern South America, where most of the species have been recorded from Colombia and Ecuador (Fig. 5, G-I). The actual number of Chondrorhyncha species is still debatable. We demonstrated that C. velastiguii, still included in the genus, must be segregated on the basis of a set of morphological characters. I also suspect that C. fosterae Dodson is probably misplaced in Chondrorhyncha. Although Dressler and Dalström (2004), in the first synopsis of Chondrorhyncha s.s. reduced the genus to only five species, I would suggest that a figure of 7-9 species is probably closer to reality. Chondrorhyncha species may be mainly characterized morphologically by the presence of a narrow, not fleshy callus near the middle of the lip, wide basally and tapering at apex, and by the pollinarium provided with a narrowly triangular-peltate stipe with a viscidium that becomes scarcely distinct toward the apical portion of the stipe. The flowers of Chon- drorhyncha are always resupinate, with the lateral sepals sometimes subfalcate and subuncinate at the apex, spreading-recurved to abruptly reflexed, concave, strongly inrolled-folded toward the base. The petals are obtuse and gently recurved at apex. The lip, sometimes three-lobed, is rounded-subsaccate at the base, with the apex obtuse to emarginate or minutely bilobed and the basal margins erect to flank the column. Species of Chondrorhyncha occur as shaded epiphytes, mostly in evergreen premontane wet forests at 500-1800 m along the eastern slopes of the Andes. Their flowering has been recorded throughout the year, with a flowering peak from January to July. ...