Stenomesson sp. nov.: This amaryllid grows near Podocarpus National Park in southern Ecuador, on shear rock cliffs in cloud forest at about 1200m. Alan Meerow and I will describe it..

Eucharis sp. nov.: This amaryllid also grows near Podocarpus National Park in southern Ecuador. I found it while searching for a "lost" amaryllid, Pamianthe sp., which was known from a single specimen collected by Cal Dodson years ago on the Loja-Zamora road. While walking along the roadside a local passer-by recognized my companions, Bob Ridgely, Nigel Simpson, and Pancho Sornoza, and stopped to talk. I asked him if he had ever seen a white flower coming from a bulb around there, and he said yes. So the next day Nigel and I went with him, expecting to find Pamianthe, but instead we found leaves of this unknown Eucharis, which finally bloomed in my bathroom three months later. Alan Meerow and I will describe it..

Habenaria sp. nov.: I discovered this terrestrial orchid in one of the Jocotoco Foundation's bird conservation reserves. Their reserves are very important for plant conservation as well as for bird conservation. See Orchids of the Jocotoco Reserves for a report.

3 New Psilochilus species: These three species all grew in the same place on the Galeras Mountains near Volcan Sumaco in eastern Ecuador. They are currently being described by Erik Rothacker and myself, and Erik is also sequencing their DNA. See all three species at Psilochilus.

Campylocentrum jostii Dodson: An unusual genus related to the vandaceous orchids of Asia rather than to neotropical groups. I found this species in a beautiful wet ridgetop forest in the Rio Topo-Rio Zuñac valley near Baños, Ecuador.

Stellilabium jostii Dodson: This tiny orchid mimics the rear end of a female fly, and male flies try to mate with it, thus pollinating the flower. I found it in May 2003 near Mera on the eastern edge of my study area.

2 New Brachionidium species: Two species of Brachionidium that I found in the Cordillera del Condor in Dec 2002 are new. They are both like B. galeatum (which I also found on the same trip) but they have lips that are rather different from that species and from each other. For more info see my Cordillera del Condor Report and my article for Selbyana, New Pleurothallid Orchids from the Cordillera del Condor of Ecuador.

Five more new Teagueia species!: In Jan 2003 my friends R. and D. Kunstaetter and I trekked for nine days in the virtually unknown mountains south of the Rio Pastaza near my home in central Ecuador. We found fourteen species of Teagueia, including five new species (see my Teagueia monograph for additional photos). Most of the new species grew at or above timberline. This was the first trip in which I managed to get so high up on a Teagueia mountain; it may be that there are more new species above timberline on the other Teagueia mountains in my study area. Stay tuned!

Masdevallia loui Luer: Another new warm-growing Masdevallia from the same forest as Masdevallia stigii (see below). Stig Dalstrom came to visit me over Christmas 2002, and we went back to the same general area where we had found the Masdevallia stigii. To our surprise we found many other Masdevallia species, at least one of them new. Dr. Luer has described this new one as M. loui in his fifth volume of his Masdevallia monographs. It seems closely related to M. lintricula.

Ponthieva jostii Dodson: This orchid comes from Cerro Mayordomo, like Maxillaria kunstaetterorum and many other new orchid species. I discovered it while totally lost. I had forgotten my compass but didn't notice until I was high up on Mayordomo, trying to get down. Low clouds obscured the ridgelines, and I mistook the hills south of Mayordomo for the hills west of Mayordomo. So I was disoriented by 90 degrees, and kept coming up against vertical dropoffs where I was expecting a gentle ridgeline. I had just about resigned myself to sleeping in that cold wet forest without a tent or food or water, when I found a cut tree. That eventually led me to a faint trail and a way out of the maze of dangerous cliffs.

In Oct 2002 Dr. Dodson confirmed that it was new and was in the process of describing it.

TWENTY new Teagueia species!!: In Feb 2000 I discovered the first four long-creeping Teagueia species, described by Dr Carl Luer in Volume XX of his Icones monographs. I found them on Cerro Mayordomo; they are Teagueia alyssana, T. sancheziae, T. jostii, and T. cymbisepala.Then in late 2001 I discovered another large set of new creeping Teagueia species on the next mountain west of Mayordomo. In May 2002 I sent two of my students, Andy Shephard and Pailin Wedel, to a mountain south of Mayordomo, and they discovered yet another big set of new species. I have since discovered still more species on Mayordomo, and it is clear that there must be many more in the region. This is one of the strangest and most surprising situations in all of Ecuadorian botany. The discoveries are described in more detail in Teagueia Explosion!, and each species is treated in the online Monograph of the Genus Teagueia Luer (Orchidaceae) which I am preparing for this website. I am in the process of making the botanical illustrations necessary for their description.

Lepanthes mayordomensis Jost and Luer: In Nov 2001 I found this Lepanthes at a high elevation (2800m) on Cerro Mayordomo. I only found one plant. It is rather like L. tungurahuae, but the wing-shaped lip and oddly shaped petals distinguish it. It has been published in Dr. Carl Luer's Icones Pleurothallidinarum XXVII.

Lepanthes neillii Jost: This striking new Lepanthes was growing in a very remote part of the Cordillera del Condor, near the border between Ecuador and Peru. This mountain range is isolated from the main body of the Andes, and is geologically unique, so it has many endemic species. Nevertheless the area has not been well explored, because of border tensions (including skirmishes and landmines). A recent peace treaty between the two nations has demilitarized the border, opening it up for botanical exploration. In early 2001 I went on an expedition led by David Neill of the Herbario Nacional, flying in to a remote airstrip cut out of the forest by Shuar indians (the famous tribe that until recently shrunk the heads of their enemies). The Shuar  helped us reach a strange sandstone plateau at 2000m that was so sterile and free of nutrients that its woody plants were all stunted. Some terrestrial Sobralia orchids actually overtopped the canopy of the stunted trees. Jose Manzanares accompanied us and found many new bromeliad species here.

     I found this Lepanthes at the foot of the sandstone mesa. It was without flowers but it had an old dry inflorescence that was very unusual, so I collected it. I kept it alive until, more than a year later, it finally flowered and proved to be a new species. It is described in Selbyana 25:11-16 (2004); see New Pleurothallid Orchids from the Cordillera del Condor of Ecuador.

On this page I do not include species I discovered between 1998 and 2000, since those have all been adequately published. Those species will however be dealt with in my Biogeography of the Pastaza Watershed online book. Here I simply list them:

My painting of Lepanthes viebrockiana. For more of my paintings, click here.