Main | Family List (MO) | Family List (INBio) | Cutting Edge Draft Treatments | Guidelines | Checklist | Citing | Editors The Cutting Edge Volume IX, Number 2, April 2002 News and Notes | Leaps and Bounds | Germane Literature | Season's Pick BROMELIACEAE. In just under the wire for our monocot volumes is Tillandsia elongata Kunth, widespread from Mexico to Peru, Brasil, and the Antilles, but never yet collected in Costa Rica. That is, not until it was found by Manual Bromeliaceae contributor Francisco Morales (INB) along the Río Sapoá, near Peñas Blancas, hard up against the Nicaraguan border. Chico's material corresponds to T. e. var. subimbricata (Baker) L. B. Sm., virtually as widespread as the sp. CYPERACEAE. Gómez-Laurito 10855, from near Los Chiles on the northernmost Atlantic coastal plain, has been determined by family specialist Konraed Camelbeke (GENT) as Scleria lacustris C. Wright. The collector (also a Cyperaceae specialist) subsequently confirmed this identification from a photo of the type. As far as we can determine, S. lacustris is (or was?) a Cuban endemic, though it has become sporadically naturalized in other tropical and subtropical regions. HALORAGACEAE. This is more of an update than a true “leap.“ Previously [see The Cutting Edge 8(2): 5, Apr. 2001], we reported that Jorge Gómez-Laurito (USJ) had collected a sp. of Myriophyllum, “probably M. aquaticum (Vell.) Verdc.,“ from near El Empalme on the way up to Cerro de La Muerte. We speculated that this might be a new genus and even a new family for the country. Manual aquatic plants contributor Garrett Crow (NHA) recently sent us a scanned image of Crow 6136 (NHA), a 1984 collection of M. aquaticum from a roadside ditch near Santo Domingo de Heredia (this was in the days before INBio). He also suggests that Jorge's collection may instead represent Myriophyllum quitense Kunth, a sp. of higher elevations. If so, then we would have a new record after all. PHYTOLACCACEAE. Phytolacca meziana H. Walter has been considered a sp. of northern Mesoamerica, and was not included in William Burger's 1983 Flora costaricensis treatment of Phytolaccaceae (Fieldiana, Bot. n. s., 13: 199–212). Nonetheless, according to recent studies by Francisco Morales, it is present on both slopes of the Cordillera de Talamanca at 2000–3150 m elevation. Checking TROPICOS, we learn to our surprise that MO savant Ron Liesner has been applying this name to material from Costa Rica and western Panama since at least 1996, and that the sp. had been collected in Costa Rica as early as 1967 (by present MO Director Peter H. Raven). Phytolacca meziana is distinctive in its long-pedicellate fruits with a persistent calyx.