Main | Family List (MO) | Family List (INBio) | Cutting Edge Draft Treatments | Guidelines | Checklist | Citing | Editors The Cutting Edge Volume XXI, Number 2, April 2014 News and Notes | Leaps and Bounds | Germane Literature | Season's Pick BORAGINACEAE. Santamaría & González 4679, from 800–1000 m elevation in the foothills of Volcán Turrialba (Atlantic slope of the Cordillera Central), represents Tournefortia multiflora J. S. Mill., a sp. (with very odd, asclepioid-like floral morphology) heretofore believed endemic to Panama. The initial determination by Manual co-PI Barry Hammel was confirmed, via a scanned image, by Jim Miller (MO) himself (who would now class this sp. in Heliotropiaceae). EUPHORBIACEAE. Manual collaborator Armando Estrada (CR) has opened our eyes to the presence in Costa Rica of Euphorbia lancifolia Schltdl., a sp. that was not mentioned in the Manual Euphorbiaceae treatment (2010) by José González (LSCR) nor, for that matter, in the Flora costaricensis account of the family (1995). Though apparently native at least from southern Mexico to El Salvador and Honduras, E. lancifolia is also known to be cultivated, and there are South American collections in TROPICOS. The status (native or introduced) of the Costa Rican populations is unclear, but Armando reports that the sp. is relatively common in the basin of the Río Torres (Guadalupe de Goicoechea; Sabanilla de Montes de Oca), on the Pacific slope of the Valle Central. Moreover, he found a 1951 collection from the San Carlos region (León 3582) in the CR herbarium that had been determined originally as E. lancifolia. In the Flora of Guatemala, Euphorbia lancifolia keys next to E. oerstediana (Klotzsch & Garcke) Boiss., from which is distinguished by its leaf-blades that are acute (vs. obtuse to rounded) at the base and "fleshy" (vs. "thin"). HYDROCHARITACEAE. The submerged aquatic Egeria densa Planch., native to South America, was treated in full in Manual Vol. 2 (2003), albeit on a highly tenuous basis: a single collection from a pond on the campus of the Centro Universitario de San Ramón. Now we have much more solid evidence for the status of this sp. as a bona fide member of the Costa Rican flora, courtesy of Manual co-PI Barry Hammel, who recently discovered a large and well-established population clogging irrigation canals in the headwaters of Quebrada Ojo de Agua, at ca. 815 m elevation near the town of Ciruelas, on the Pacific slope of the Valle Central. Barry's collection (Hammel et al. 26697), in full flower, requires modification of the elevational range of E. densa (to "800–1050 m") and allows us, for the first time, to specify a flowering phenology ("mar."). RUBIACEAE. A batch of intriguing material gathered recently by Manual co-PI Nelson Zamora (INB) from the Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre Mixto Maquenque, on the Llanura de San Carlos, included Faramea tamberlikiana Müll. Arg. subsp. sessifolia (P. H. Allen) C. M. Taylor, otherwise known in Costa Rica (sp. and subsp. alike) only from the Pacific slope. And in a very similar vein... URTICACEAE. Zamora et al. 6587, a sterile specimen from the Cutris region, far out on the Llanura de San Carlos, has finally been determined (after much deliberation) as Coussapoa asperifolia Trécul, previously believed to reach its northernmost limit on the Península de Osa. And yes, Virginia, Coussapoa will be treated under Urticaceae in the Manual. TOP