Main | Family List (MO) | Family List (INBio) | Cutting Edge Draft Treatments | Guidelines | Checklist | Citing | Editors The Cutting Edge Volume IX, Number 3, July 2002 News and Notes | Recent Treatments | Leaps and Bounds | Germane Literature | Season's Pick HIPPOCASTANACEAE. J. Fco. Morales (INB). Well, not exactly. Chico has chosen to follow the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group [see The Cutting Edge 6(1): 5–6, Jan. 1999], not to mention common sense, in including this taxon in Sapindaceae, so this is really a supplement to his already completed treatment of the latter family [see The Cutting Edge 7(1): 3–4, Jan. 2000]. In a further audacious departure from tradition, he tentatively opts to accept just one sp. of Billia, the only genus occurring in Costa Rica. This decision renders moot the recent substitution of the name Billia rosea (Planch. & Linden) C. Ulloa & P. M. JØrg. for the long-entrenched B. columbiana Planch. & Linden [see The Cutting Edge 8(3): 10–11, Jul. 2001], as both now become synonyms of B. hippocastanum Peyr. Chico's new taxonomy is based on his field observations suggesting that the characters that have been used to distinguish two spp. vary independently. He considers that additional herbarium corroboration of this hypothesis is needed. ONAGRACEAE. J. González (INB). Six genera occur in Costa Rica, with a total of 30 spp., none of which is endemic. By far the most sp.-rich genus is Ludwigia, with 17 Costa Rican members, followed distantly by Fuchsia and Oenothera, with five apiece. No cultivated spp. are treated formally (though several are mentioned under the latter two genera), and no spp. are included hypothetically or under provisional names. SABIACEAE. J. Fco. Morales (INB). This is not a de novo contribution, but rather an augmentation of Chico's previously submitted treatment of this small family [see The Cutting Edge 5(4): 3, Oct. 1998]. The Costa Rican sp. total for Meliosma (the sole Mesoamerican genus in the family) rises from 12 to 14 with the addition of Meliosma cordata A. H. Gentry and M. occidentalis Cuatrec. [the latter segregated from Costa Rican matierial generally identified as M. vernicosa (Liebm.) Griseb.]. The other details in our initial report remain unchanged, except that one of the then (and still) unpublished spp. has apparently undergone an embryonic name-change. THEOPHRASTACEAE. J. Fco. Morales (INB). No surprises here, among the three genera and four spp. of Theophrastaceae represented in Costa Rica. The genus with two spp. is Clavija. Our sole endemic sp. is the recently described Deherainia lageniformis Gómez-Laur. & N. Zamora [see The Cutting Edge 5(4): 6, Oct. 1998]. TOP