Main | Family List (MO) | Family List (INBio) | Cutting Edge Draft Treatments | Guidelines | Checklist | Citing | Editors The Cutting Edge Volume XII, Number 3, July 2005 News and Notes | Recent Treatments | Leaps and Bounds | Germane Literature | Season's Pick | Annotate your copy GESNERIACEAE. R. Kriebel (INB). This important family, comprising mainly herbs that are frequently epiphytic, is represented in Costa Rica by 27 genera with 134 spp. The three most diverse genera (and the only ones in double figures) are Columnea (s. l.), Drymonia, and Besleria, with 36, 22, and 15 spp., respectively. The spp. indicated as endemic to Costa Rica total 23, with 11 in Columnea, three in Drymonia, two each in Besleria, Nautilocalyx, and Paradrymonia, and one apiece for Alloplectus, Gasteranthus, and Neomortonia. Provisional or unpublished names are utilized for five spp. (one each in Alloplectus and Columnea and three in Drymonia), of which four are among the ostensible endemics. No spp. known only from cultivation are formally treated, but Gloxinia perennis (L.) Fritsch is apparently not native in Costa Rica (though widely naturalized). One significant taxonomic innovation at the generic level is ventured here: Oerstedina is synonymized under Rufodorsia, with the new combination still pending for the single Costa Rican sp. affected. Curiously omitted is any mention of the genus Alsobia (sometimes lumped in Episcia), even though A. dianthiflora (H. E. Moore & R. G. Wilson) Wiehler has been recorded (albeit somewhat dubiously) from Costa Rica. TOP