Main | Family List (MO) | Family List (INBio) | Cutting Edge Draft Treatments | Guidelines | Checklist | Citing | Editors The Cutting Edge Volume XIII, Number 3, July 2006 News and Notes | Recent Treatments | Germane Literature | Season's Pick | Annotate your copy WELCOME BACK!  After a lengthy absence, Dr. Alfredo Cascante has returned to the Museo Nacional (CR), having obtained his Ph.D. this year, at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, with a dissertation on “the demography and community assembly of bromeliad populations and bromeliad communities in relation to their colonizing ability, life cycle and reproductive biology of selected species” (we quote from the university Web site, where readers are directed for further information).  Alfredo’s research was conducted at Monteverde.  While we lament the loss of a talented taxonomist to the ecological sphere, we congratulate Alfredo on his achievement and wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors. MUSEO ON THE WEB.  Be the first to check out the Museo Nacional’s snazzy new Web site at: http://www.museocostarica.go.cr/index.php It’s only been up for a week or so! A FREE MAN IN PARIS. Manual co-PI Barry Hammel enjoyed the high life from 3 May to 18 June, in the company of wife and colleague Isabel Pérez, as a visiting curator at the Herbier National (P). The focus was on Clusiaceae, identifying specimens and studying types (e.g., of Triana and Planchon) in order to finalize family treatments for Flora mesoamericana and the Manual. VISITORS TO MO. MO curator (and Manual Rubiaceae contributor) Charlotte M. Taylor played host, for a week in June, to Costa Rican OTS employees Enrique Castro and Orlando Vargas, in town to verify or falsify vouchers for the La Selva florula project. Following their work at MO, the trio journeyed to DUKE for another week in the same vein. VISITORS TO COSTA RICA. Orchid specialist and FLAS grad student Mario Blanco returned to his homeland for a brief spell, and was sighted in the herbarium at INBio. Moringaceae authority and Washington University graduate Mark Olson (MEXU) is currently in Costa Rica as an invited lecturer for an OTS course. He and colleague/companion Julieta Rosell also took time for a field excursion with Francisco Morales in search of the epiphytic Bursera standleyana L. O. Williams & Cuatrec. (Burseraceae). Mark and Julieta are working on several species complexes in Bursera, aiming towards a revision of the genus. WINDS OF CHANGE. The Museo Nacional now requires that, before any loans can be sent, there be officially in place a fully agreed upon, signed, dated, and stamped agreement (convenio) between the Museo and the borrowing institution. Although this promises to involve a good deal of red tape, the good news is that each convenio is valid for a period of five years. Anyone seeking to borrow botanical specimens from CR should expect to wait at least a month, once the paperwork has been submitted, for the transaction to be completed. TOP