Main | Family List (MO) | Family List (INBio) | Cutting Edge Draft Treatments | Guidelines | Checklist | Citing | Editors The Cutting Edge Volume VIII, Number 4, October 2001 News and Notes | Recent Treatments | Leaps and Bounds | Germane Literature | Season's Pick ASTERACEAE. Persistent exploration and sterling work on the Manual Asteraceae treatment by Alexander (´Popeye´) Rodríguez (INB) keeps turning up exciting new country records. Rodríguez 6868, from the Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre Bosque Nacional Diriá, on the Península de Nicoya, has been positively identified as Tridax platyphylla B. L. Rob. This sp., previously known from southern Mexico and (disjunctly) Nicaragua, comprises erect annuals to 1 m tall, distinctively different from the common, weedy T. procumbens L. CABOMBACEAE. A Jorge Gómez-Laurito collection (13654) from the Los Chiles region has been tentatively identified by its collector as Cabomba palaeformis Fassett, a Mesomerican sp. not previously reported from south of Nicaragua. But this may not be a first record, as Jorge suspects that some Costa Rican material previously determined as C. furcata Schult. & Schult. f. may in reality represent C. palaeformis. CYPERACEAE. Eleocharis mitrata (Griseb.) C. B. Clarke, widespread (thought spottily distributed) in the Neotropics, has turned up for the first time in Costa Rica. The historic collection was made by family specialist Jorge Gómez-Laurito (13643), from near Los Chiles on the northern Atlantic coastal plain. EUPHORBIACEAE. New discoveries are made both in the field and the herbarium. This one surfaced among loaned specimens recently returned to MO. Croton tabascensis Lundell, of disjunct occurrence in southern Mexico and Nicaragua, can now be attributed to Costa Rica on the basis of a 1982 collection by Flora costaricensis Euphorbiaceae co-author Michael Huft from the Guanacaste region. The determination is by family specialist Grady L. Webster (DAV). The collection (Huft et al. 2106) has yet to be studied by Manual Euphorbiaceae contributor José González (INB), and we cannot tell how, or even if, it was dealt with in Flora costaricensis (Fieldiana, Bot. n. s., 36: 1–169. 1995). NYMPHAEACEAE. Gómez-Laurito 13561, from the Los Chiles region in northern Costa Rica, has been determined by its collector as Nymphaea conardii Wiersema, found throughout the Mesoamerican region but never before (as far as we can determine) in Costa Rica. RUBIACEAE. Hammel 20342, from the Boca Tapada region of northernmost Costa Rica, has been redetermined as Psychotria zevallosii C. M. Taylor by MO specialist Charlotte Taylor. Although this is the first Costa Rican record of this sp. (otherwise known from Panama to Peru), it represents no net gain for the flora; Charlotte's preliminary determination, as Psychotria flaviflora (K. Krause) C.M. Taylor, already signaled a country record, and was duly reported in this column [The Cutting Edge 4(3): 3, Jul. 1997]. SMILACACEAE. Smilax luculenta Killip & C. V. Morton has been distinguished among Costa Rican material previously identified by other names. This sp., otherwise known from southern Mexico to Nicaragua, appears restricted in Costa Rica to the humid Pacific lowlands, from the Puriscal region to the Península de Osa. It resembles S. kunthii Killip & C. V. Morton, but differs in having smaller tepals. Our thanks to Manual Smilacaceae contributor Francisco Morales (INB) for this report.