Piper urostachyum
Understory shrub that can reach a height of 1m.
Inflorescences are white and erect. Leaves are present in thick rows along stem and are densely pubescent. Stems and petioles are covered in many hairy trichomes.
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.
N=16 herbivore associations as of 2012.
Bombycidae: Zolessia felderi (Druce); N=1.
Erebidae: Halysidota sannionis (Rothschild); N=1.
Gelechiidae: Isophricits sp.; N=1.
Geometridae: Eois obada (Druce); N=1, Eois nov. sp.; N=1, Oxydia sp.; N=1, Unknown spp.; N=3.
Hesperiidae: Quadrus cerialis (Stoll); N=2.
Tortricidae: Unknown sp.; N=3.
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 urostachyum see: Biol. Cent.-Amer., Bot. 3(14): 57, t. 72 57 1882.
P. urostachyum is found in Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Coumbia and Peru.
This distribution data was provided by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Herbarium and Tropicos.
Larval lepidopteran herbivores collected from P. urostachyum in Heredia Province, Costa Rica (La Selva Biological Station).
P. urostachyum is abundant in the understory of Neotropical wet forests.
A number of synonyms for the accepted name, Piper urostachyum Hemsl. have been acknowledged by the The Plant List.