taxonID	type	description	language	source
2CBE2E602823527CA800486729D68EB8.taxon	description	Fig. 2, Suppl. material 3.	en	Armijos-Barros, Jorge, González-Sánchez, Diego, Nole-Nole, Darío, Markesteijn, Lars, Escudero, Adrián, Jara-Guerrero, Andrea, Espinosa, Carlos Iván (2025): A new tree species from seasonally dry tropical forest in southern Ecuador, Spirotheca zapotillana sp. nov. (Malvaceae), resolves a putatively disjunct distribution. PhytoKeys 265: 181-192, DOI: 10.3897/phytokeys.265.162409
2CBE2E602823527CA800486729D68EB8.taxon	diagnosis	Diagnosis. Spirotheca zapotillana Armijos, D. P. González & Nole differs from Spirotheca elegans Carv. - Sobr. et al. in having larger leaflets 35 – 90 × 15 – 35 mm (vs. 20 – 45 × 8 – 20 mm) with acute apices (vs. slightly retuse, obtuse, or acuminate, often mucronate), petiolules 0.9 – 3.8 mm long (vs. absent); flowers erect (vs. slanting downwards) and reddish (vs. greenish-yellow, then becoming white), staminal tubes non-articulate (vs. doubly articulate); capsules oblong (vs. obovoid or rarely spheroid), with brown (vs. white) kapok.	en	Armijos-Barros, Jorge, González-Sánchez, Diego, Nole-Nole, Darío, Markesteijn, Lars, Escudero, Adrián, Jara-Guerrero, Andrea, Espinosa, Carlos Iván (2025): A new tree species from seasonally dry tropical forest in southern Ecuador, Spirotheca zapotillana sp. nov. (Malvaceae), resolves a putatively disjunct distribution. PhytoKeys 265: 181-192, DOI: 10.3897/phytokeys.265.162409
2CBE2E602823527CA800486729D68EB8.taxon	description	Description. Tree up to 15 m tall, typically found in clumps, some individuals producing clonal offshoots originating from the roots of mature trees, leafless during flowering. Trunks erect, densely covered by conical prickles, 8 – 33 mm long, 8 – 23 mm diam. at the base; bark grayish with pale, longitudinal striations; twigs with prickles. Terminal shoots covered by broadly triangular, concave cataphylls. Leaves palmately compound, clustered at branch apices. Petioles 50 – 100 mm long, 1 – 1.9 mm diam., slightly pulvinate. Leaflets (5 –) 7 per leaf, 35 – 90 × 15 – 35 mm, elliptical, bases cuneate, margins entire, apices acute; petiolules 0.9 – 3.8 mm long; adaxial surface glabrous and lustrous; abaxial surface glabrous with sparsely pubescent midrib, secondary veins prominent. Stipules linear, caducous, 4.5 – 12 × 0.9 – 1.2 mm. Cymes bearing 3 – 5 flowers, terminal. Flower buds 24 – 40 × 6 – 9.5 mm, linear-oblong, green to red prior to anthesis, anthers spirally arranged within the flower buds. Flowers with erect pedicels 13.5 – 26.1 mm long; receptacles with 4 – 5 small, conspicuous glands at the base. Calyces 3.5 – 8 × 6.5 – 11.2 mm, cupuliform, glabrous externally, sericeous internally, conspicuously 5 - apiculate. Petals 44 – 52 × 9.5 – 12 mm, fleshy, oblong, longitudinally asymmetric, reflexed, entirely bright red, densely pubescent internally, externally pubescent on the overlapped portion of petals during the bud stage, sparsely pubescent on the non-overlapped portion. Staminal tube s 25 – 32 × 2.5 – 3.4 mm, of uniform width, not articulate, sparsely covered with scaly trichomes; at apex divided into 5 free, reddish filament-like lobes, each 6 – 9 mm long. Anthers with two pairs of bisporangiate thecae joined at their ends, 14 – 18 mm long, extrorse, five in number; upper thecae 7 – 9 mm long; lower thecae 5 – 8 mm long. Ovaries 5.7 × 2.8 mm, greenish, conical, densely pubescent, 5 - locular. Styles 14 – 20.5 mm long, slender, declinate at anthesis; stigmas 5 - branched. Capsules 65 – 80 × 13 – 15.5 mm, 5 - ribbed, 5 - valved, oblong, apex rounded, containing abundant brown kapok. Seeds 5 × 3.5 mm when mature, reniform, brown.	en	Armijos-Barros, Jorge, González-Sánchez, Diego, Nole-Nole, Darío, Markesteijn, Lars, Escudero, Adrián, Jara-Guerrero, Andrea, Espinosa, Carlos Iván (2025): A new tree species from seasonally dry tropical forest in southern Ecuador, Spirotheca zapotillana sp. nov. (Malvaceae), resolves a putatively disjunct distribution. PhytoKeys 265: 181-192, DOI: 10.3897/phytokeys.265.162409
2CBE2E602823527CA800486729D68EB8.taxon	etymology	Etymology. The specific epithet refers to Zapotillo Cantón, southern Ecuador. We chose this name because the majority of documented populations of Spirotheca zapotillana occur in this area. In addition, this area comprises one of the last intact remnants of Ecuador’s seasonally dry tropical forest habitat, a highly threatened ecosystem vulnerable to degradation and fragmentation.	en	Armijos-Barros, Jorge, González-Sánchez, Diego, Nole-Nole, Darío, Markesteijn, Lars, Escudero, Adrián, Jara-Guerrero, Andrea, Espinosa, Carlos Iván (2025): A new tree species from seasonally dry tropical forest in southern Ecuador, Spirotheca zapotillana sp. nov. (Malvaceae), resolves a putatively disjunct distribution. PhytoKeys 265: 181-192, DOI: 10.3897/phytokeys.265.162409
2CBE2E602823527CA800486729D68EB8.taxon	distribution	Distribution and habitat. The species is currently known from four populations within the SDTF of Zapotillo Cantón of Loja Province (at 450 – 600 m elevations) and one unstudied population in Las Lajas Cantón of El Oro Province (somewhere between 300 and 900 m). Each of the Zapotillo populations contains an average of seven individuals. Mature individuals grow in clumps; some are typically associated with three or more clonal offshoots. These populations occur on rocky hillsides, across a relatively extensive area in deciduous and semi-deciduous forest types characterized by pronounced seasonality (Fig. 3).	en	Armijos-Barros, Jorge, González-Sánchez, Diego, Nole-Nole, Darío, Markesteijn, Lars, Escudero, Adrián, Jara-Guerrero, Andrea, Espinosa, Carlos Iván (2025): A new tree species from seasonally dry tropical forest in southern Ecuador, Spirotheca zapotillana sp. nov. (Malvaceae), resolves a putatively disjunct distribution. PhytoKeys 265: 181-192, DOI: 10.3897/phytokeys.265.162409
2CBE2E602823527CA800486729D68EB8.taxon	discussion	Discussion. The strict consensus tree resulting from maximum parsimony analysis of morphological characters (Fig. 4) suggests that Spirotheca zapotillana is sister to S. elegans, with high bootstrap support (BS = 1.0) due to the strong morphological similarity of these two species. This clade was nested within a moderately supported group (BS = 0.67) that also included S. rivieri. S. zapotillana differs from S. elegans (Table 1) in having cymes of 3 – 5 flowers (vs. 1 – 3 flowers). The petals are uniformly reddish (vs. initially greenish-yellow, later turning white), with the inner surface densely pubescent and the outer surface pubescent only on the overlapped portion (vs. minutely and densely pubescent on both surfaces). The staminal tube is cylindrical, with scaly trichomes (vs. doubly swollen with tufted trichomes, becoming glabrous at the apex). The fruit is an oblong capsule (vs. obovoid or spheroid) that contains brown kapok (vs. white kapok) and reniform seeds (vs. pyriform). S. zapotillana resembles S. rivieri (Table 1) in having reddish flowers and a trunk covered with conical prickles. In contrast, it differs in habit, being strictly tree-like, up to 15 m tall (vs. hemiepiphytic shrubs with a strangler habit or trees 20 – 30 m tall derived from them). The leaves bear (5 –) 7 leaflets (vs. 3 – 7), with elliptical laminae (vs. elliptic-oblong to elliptic-obovate) and an acute apex (vs. obtuse and emarginate apex). Calyces are 5 – apiculate (vs. truncate). The staminal tube is non-articulate (vs. articulate or not) with sparse, scaly trichomes (vs. densely tomentose at the base, sparse distally). The style is glabrous (vs. densely hairy). Capsules are oblong, 65 – 80 mm long (vs. elliptic, up to 90 mm). In 1978, a leafless specimen of Spirotheca (Daly 71) was collected from the SDTF of southernmost El Oro province. Although its floral characteristics closely resembled those of S. rivieri var. rivieri, the location in Ecuador was strikingly disjunct from that species’ known range in southeastern Brazil. Gibbs and Alverson (2006) noted this specimen as an unresolved anomaly within the genus. Our study concludes that this mystery specimen represents S. zapotillana. We look forward to a molecular study that can resolve whether our new species is in fact most closely related to a species in Brazil or if the morphological similarities (Fig. 4) are due to convergence in dry forest habitats.	en	Armijos-Barros, Jorge, González-Sánchez, Diego, Nole-Nole, Darío, Markesteijn, Lars, Escudero, Adrián, Jara-Guerrero, Andrea, Espinosa, Carlos Iván (2025): A new tree species from seasonally dry tropical forest in southern Ecuador, Spirotheca zapotillana sp. nov. (Malvaceae), resolves a putatively disjunct distribution. PhytoKeys 265: 181-192, DOI: 10.3897/phytokeys.265.162409
