Main | Family List (MO) | Family List (INBio) | Cutting Edge Draft Treatments | Guidelines | Checklist | Citing | Editors The Cutting Edge Volume XII, Number 2, April 2005 News and Notes | Recent Treatments | Leaps and Bounds | Germane Literature | Season's Pick HALORAGACEAE. Garrett E. Crow (NHA). We almost failed to account for this family, known by very few Costa Rican collections (and never seen by us), but now it has been salvaged and will be duly featured in the next-to-be-published Manual volume. Haloragaceae used to include the terrestrial genus Gunnera, now classed in its own family (Gunneraceae) in a different order (Gunnerales), and to be treated separately in the Manual [see The Cutting Edge 8(2): 2, Apr. 2001]. Now Haloragaceae is limited to just two aquatic genera, Myriophyllum and Proserpinaca, with only the former here attributed to Costa Rica. Two spp. of Myriophyllum are fully treated, but only M. aquaticum (Vell.) Verdc. is vouchered, from a single locality near Santo Domingo de Heredia (the site of INBio) in the Valle Central; however, M. aquaticum is known by numerous collections from the Nicaraguan side of the Río San Juan (see Flora de Nicaragua), and must certainly occur on the Costa Rican side as well. Myriophyllum quitense Kunth, a montane South American sp., is included on a hypothetical basis, without a Costa Rican voucher; however, the suspicion is that a Myriophyllum collection from near El Empalme (in the northern Cordillera de Talamanca), reported previously in this column [see The Cutting Edge 8(2): 5, Apr. 2001], will prove to represent M. quitense (and we hope it can be examined before we go to press!). N.B.: Proserpinaca pectinata Lam., a North American sp. extending to southern Mexico (Tabasco), has been reported from Costa Rica (see Bumby in Brenesia 19/20: 487–535. 1982) on the basis of cited vouchers yet to be examined. MENYANTHACEAE. Garrett E. Crow (NHA). This small family of aquatics, formerly often included in Gentianaceae (but now classed in Asterales), is represented in Costa Rica only by the pantropical Nymphoides indica (L.) Kuntze. The New World populations of this sp. have sometimes (as in Flora of Guatemala and Flora of Panama) been segregated under the name N. humboldtiana (Kunth) Kuntze. In Costa Rica, N. indica is widespread in scattered localities, mostly in dry and moist forest associations below 500 m. NYMPHAEACEAE. Garrett E. Crow (NHA). The Costa Rican contingent of water lilies, as here presented, comprises six indigenous spp. of the genus Nymphaea, none of which is endemic. However, at least two exotic Nymphaea spp. (N. caerulea Savigny and N. lotus L.) and a horticultural hybrid (N. ×thiona D. B. Ward) have been introduced and are apparently well established in Laguna Hule (on the Atlantic slope of Volcán Poás) and nearby ponds, now included in a national wildlife refuge (Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre Bosque Alegre); these taxa are mentioned in the genus discussion, but will probably have to be added formally to the treatment. N.B.: vouchered Costa Rican records of the temperate genus Nuphar cited by Bumby (see above under Haloragaceae), though manifestly dubious, remain to be falsified. TOP