Understory shrub that can reach a height of 3-4m.
Leaves have pronounced secondary venation. Fruit is green in color upon maturation.
This information is based an ongoing project dedicated to the inventory and dissemination of information on lepidopteran larvae, their host plants, and their parasitoids in a Costa Rican tropical wet forest and an Ecuadorian montane cloud forest.
Ecuador:
N=11 herbivore associations as of 2012.
Erebidae: Unknown sp.; N=1.
Geometridae: Eois angulata (Warren); N=1.
Papilionidae: Unknown sp.; N=8.
Larval lepidopteran herbivores reared in Napo Province, Ecuador (Yanayacu Biological Station and Center for Creative Studies).
Costa Rica:
N=144 herbivore associations as of 2012.
Crambidae: Ategumia sp.; N=1.
Geometridae: Eois nov. sp.; N=2, Epimecis patronaria (Walker); N=1,
Hesperiidae: Quadrus cerialis (Stoll); N=82, Quadrus contubernalis (Mabille); N=, Achylodes sp.; N=1, Yanguna sp.; N=1.
Limacodidae: Acharia nesea (Dyar); N=1.
Noctuidae: Gonodonta sp.; N=4.
Nymphalidae: Consul fabius cecrops (Doubleday); N=1, Consul panariste jasoni (Salvin); N=4, Marpesia merops (Boisduval); N=1, Memphis cleomestra (Hewitson); N=1, Memphis sp.; N=2.
Tortricidae: Anacrusis nephrodes (Walsingham); N=15.
Larval lepidopteran herbivores reared in Heredia Province, Costa Rica (La Selva Biological Station).
For Piper phylogeny see attached pdf (Jaramillo et al., 2008).
For original publication details of Piper reticulatum see: Sp. Pl. 29 1753.
P. reticulatum has a wide Neotropical distribution. It is found in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia and the Carribean Lesser Antilles (Dominica).
This information was accessed through Discover Life and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Herbarium.
Ecuador:
Larval lepidopteran herbivores collected from P. reticulatum in Napo Province, Ecuador (Nucanchi causai).
Costa Rica:
Larval lepidopteran herbivores collected from P. reticulatum in Heredia Province, Costa Rica (Puente Sura, La Selva Biological Station).
Common Name: "Flecha"
A number of synonyms for the accepted name, Piper reticulatum L. have been acknowledged by The Plant List and are currently under review by the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families.