The Ecuadorian Lepanthes calochroma, L. peltata, and L. spiculifera are proposed as new species, and are described, illustrated, and compared with the most similar species. A brief history and description of the genus are included. The flowers of L. calochroma are similar to those of L. golbasto, but the plant is larger and the flowers are brilliantly colored with petals with an upper lobe longer than the lower. The flowers of L. peltata have an unusual bladeless lip, resembling that of L. alticola, but the latter is distinguished by much larger flowers with long-acuminate sepals. Lepanthes spiculifera is distinguished from the similar L. zettleri by the unusual blunt-spiculate pedicel bearing smaller flowers with blunt-spiculate sepals, densely pubescent petals, and a lip with long-ciliate margins.

Ecuador es uno de los países más pequeños de América del Sur (250,000 kilómetros cuadrados) pero que tiene la más alta densidad de población humana con la red más alta de caminos primarios y secundarios, lo cual explica porqué Ecuador tiene la relación más alta per capita de corte y quema en América (aproximadamente 250,000 hectáreas por año). En exceso de un 20% de la superficie del país ha sido declarada como reservas naturales privadas o del gobierno, donde por lo menos 2 /3 del área es totalmente inaccesible y nunca ha sido estudiadas botánicamente. Así, un gran porcentaje de las aproximadamente 1000 especies endémicas de orquídeas descritas hasta la fecha para el Ecuador, probablemente no estén creciendo en estas reservas. El 80% restante de la tierra se encuentra subdividida en 843,000 propiedades, de las cuales el 4% son parcelas de más de 50 hectáreas. Se puede concluir que ningún bosque primario que se encuentre fuera de las reservas podrá sobrevivir en el futuro cercano y que las respectivas especies endémicas se extinguirán en la naturaleza. Por lo tanto la conservación ex-situ resulta imperativa.

A new species, Scaphosepalum tarantula, is described. It is recognized by the medium-sized plants with grey-green leaves suffused with red-brown to purple stains at the petioles; densely fimbriated, red-brown to sanguine flowers, spiky tails of the lateral sepals and a dark sanguine, wingless lip. It is here compared to Scaphosepalum fimbriatum with which it shares similarities. Key words: new species, Pichincha, Scaphosepalum fimbriatum, sympatric species

The Neotropical genus Caucaea Schlechter (1920: 190) was established based on a small-flowered Colombian species, C. obscura (Lehm. & Krenzl. in Kränzlin 1899: 488) Schlechter (1920: 190) originally described as representative of Rodriguezia Ruiz López & Pavón (1794: 115, t. 25). In 1934, Mansfeld revealed that previously discovered Abola radiata Lindley (1853: 1) is a synonym of Schlechter’s C. obscura. Since the generic name Abola was used earlier by Adanson (1763) for a genus of Poaceae, he proposed to synonymize C. obscura with A. radiata under name Caucaea radiata (Lindl.) Mansfeld (1934: 343). Since this publication the genus had been considered monospecific until Williams et al. (2001) published surprising results of molecular research. According to their study, C. radiata is embedded in clade composed of representatives of Oncidium section Cucullata Kränzlin (1922: 128), which are large-flowered plants. In both C. radiata and Oncidium section Cucullata the lateral sepals are partially connate, the lip callus is rather simple and the gynostemium morphology is similar. The composition of Caucaea was later confirmed by Neubig et al. (2012).