Michael, how long have you been buying from Ecuagenera? In order to understand how their naming system works, you have to understand a little about their company. Ii started buying from them in the early 1990's, and live less than 2 hours from the Apopka location and go pretty frequently. Their first endeavor in plants were in the 1950's with orchids. They didn't branch out to aroids and other plants until later.
In Ecuador, Ecuagenera has at least 5 separate and widely separated growing operations in different places. They have both low elevation and high elevation growing operations so that they produce a wide variety of plants suited to different growing conditions...the highland plants needing cooler temps overall, and the lowland and intermediate plants liking warmer conditions. They purchased these tracts of land for the purpose of convervation and to use them as a natural habitat to grow and raise plants.
From what I have learned over the years, the original provenance of many of the plants they have growing on their lands was just the jungle. Some of the plants were there when they bought their lands a long time ago. Some they brought in. Some of their original breeding stock is well known and identified, some is not.
'Pangui' is a town in Ecuador. I have asked the staff at Ecuagenera more than once about the plants that have these place names....there are a lot of them. I have been told that this usually designates the locale where the plant was originally collected. And some plants that have the tag (for ex Philodendron XXX 'Ecuagenera') is a plant that only they have that form of.
Many of these plants are undescribed species. When Dr. Thomas Croat visited Ecuagenera in 2019, he collected and brought back many undescribed species that are in the process of being described. Some already have been.
Ecuagenera many times does not KNOW the name of a plant spot on (and if its undescribed, well, it really has no species name). So they will add on tags like cf, aff, or place names like Pangui, Mosquera, or they will give them numbers (splendidum 1,2,3 etc). And to import them, each plant bundle has to be labeled with a name in order to go on the Phytosanitary certificates and get past customs and the USDA.
Ecuagenera has come under a lot of criticism from the new wave of collectors for these practices. But the truth is, until all of their undescribed species are described and given proper taxonomical names, this is the best alternative. The buyer has the ultimate choice to buy or not to buy. And many who have never visited the place, met the staff and talked to them, but just mail order, don't understand what goes into the names, and are more likely to say 'oh Ecuagenera is doing it again, making up names and sticking them on plants'. One example of this is their Anthurium besseae aff. It is called that because it does have some affinity to the species A. besseae. People accused them of trying to pass it off as true besseae. Which is not true. Sometimes, when plants get posted onto the website, the tags inadvertantly get left off.
That is the long answer. The short answer is, this is a monstera that may be a form of obliqua (cf='compare to') that originated in the area of Pangui.
