Diastatea costaricensis McVaugh

Diastatea costaricensis McVaugh, Bull. Torrey Club 67: 789. 1940.
Laurentia irazuensis F. E. Wimmer; Standi. Field Mus. Publ. Bot. 18: 1415. 1938. Not Lobelia irasuensis Planch. & Oerst. 1857.
Stem simple or with few-many ascending branches, 0.5-2 mm. in diameter at base, usually purpHsh at least at base, few-34 cm. high, usually somewhat wing-angled below the decurrent leaf-bases; pubescence of subrigid chaffy hairs, mostly confined to the wing-angles of the stem, especially the basal portion, some of the hairs, at least the shortest ones, usually remaining erect and not collapsed in dried specimens; leaves mostly about 10 on the main stem, papery, somewhat appressed, the middle and upper ones lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, acute or attenuate at tip, narrowed to a sessile cuneate base, the lower ones smaller and relatively broader, acute or obtuse at tip, sessile or subpetiolate, the pubescence of aU leaves mostly confined to the margin, to the veins of the lower surface, and to the base of the blade on the upper surface, the margin finely but somewhat irregularly serrate with 4-8 teeth per cm., the blades 0.3-0.6 cm. wide by 1.0-2.5 cm. long, those of the lowest leaves as small as 0.2 by 0.3 cm., the upper and middle blades mostly 3-4.5 (6) times as long as wide; inflorescences usually plainly secund, the principal one 5-16 cm. in length, few-13-flowered; pedicels 4-16 mm. long in fruit, usually plainly scabrous under a lens, the distal end usually strongly upcurved in fruit, so that the capsule is erect; flower-bracts narrowly elliptic to linear, all appressed to the axis, usually strongly so, the lower resembling reduced leaves, 0.2-0.4 cm. wide by 1.0-2.7 cm. long; flower 5-7 mm. long, including hj-panthium; corolla blue-purple or violet, the tube cream-yellow within (according to Austin Smith"), 3-4 mm. long, the two upper lobes broadly triangular, 1.3-1.5 mm. long, the lobes of the lower lip rounded-spatulate, about 1 mm. broad by 1.5 mm. long; filaments 3.5-4.0 mm. long; anther-tube 0.9-1. 1 mm. long, the three larger anthers minutely pubescent; hypanthium glabrous, about as broad as high, 0.8-1.1 mm. high; capsule broadly eUipsoid, 2.5-3 mm. in diameter by 5.0-6.5 mm. long; caI>'x-lobes narrowly triangular, usually plainly tapering from base to apex, 0.5-1.0 mm. wide at base, strongly prickly-ciliate on margins, 4-6 mm. long; seeds about 0.5 mm. in length.
Ti-PE toc.M-iTv: Near San Jose, Costa Rica, Oersted 923S (Copenhagen!). DisTRiBvnox: Southern Guatemala to Costa Rica, at elevations of 800-2400 m.