Rhodochiton nubicola

Description

Rhodochiton nubicola is a climbing or sprawling herbaceous perennial native to the state of Chiapas in Mexico and to Guatemala, where it grows in cloud forests at between 1,300 and 3,000 m (4,300 and 9,800 ft). It has dangling flowers, with a bell-shaped calyx and dark purple petals forming a tube. Unlike the better known Rhodochiton atrosanguineus, the petal tube is asymmetrical with two "lips". The species was first described by Wayne J. Elisens in 1985. The specific epithet nubicola is a noun derived from Latin nubes, cloud, and -(i)cola, dweller, thus meaning "cloud dweller". It was transferred from the genus Lophospermum to Rhodochiton by David A. Sutton in 1988.