Main | Family List (MO) | Family List (INBio) | Cutting Edge Draft Treatments | Guidelines | Checklist | Citing | Editors The Cutting Edge Volume XII, Number 1, January 2005 News and Notes | Recent Treatments | Leaps and Bounds | Germane Literature | Season's Pick | Annotate your copy BROMELIACEAE. Tillandsia streptophylla Scheidw. ex C. Morren, previously reported from Mexico to Nicaragua, was found for the first time in Costa Rica by INBio curator (and Manual Bromeliaceae contributor) Francisco Morales, on the highest peak of the Península de Santa Elena (see under "News and Notes"). At the same site, he also collected the rare Catopsis pedicellata L. B. Sm., included in the Manual on the sole basis of Chico's earlier collection from the basin of the Río Sapoá. LENNOACEAE. This, a new family for Costa Rica, was perhaps the most exciting discovery of our November excursion to the Península de Santa Elena (see under "News and Notes"), if not of the entire project. The initial find was made by Área de Conservación Guanacaste field botanists Roberto Espinoza and Adrián Guadamuz, but the same sp. was later recollected by Adrián and also by INBio botany cacique Nelson Zamora. The collections are from rocky outcrops at ca. 500-700 m elevation in the highest part of the peninsula (Cerros Santa Elena). Our parsimonious assumption was that we were dealing with Lennoa madreporoides Lex., known from Nicaragua and, in fact, the only sp. of this small family of root parasites recorded from south of Mexico. This notion has been affirmed tentatively by family specialist George Yatskievych (MO), based on his examination of photos taken in the field, and more forcefully (if less authoritatively!) by Manual co-PI Barry Hammel, based on his analysis of pickled material. One of our collections appeared clearly to be parasitizing the local endemic Simsia santarosensis D. M. Spooner (Asteraceae-the most usual host family for L. madreporoides). N.B.: we feel duty-bound to acknowledge that the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group [see The Cutting Edge 10(3): 5-6, Jul. 2003] does not recognize Lennoaceae as a family distinct from Boraginaceae; nonetheless, we will probably treat it separately for the Manual, in view of the many unresolved problems concerning the classification of Boraginaceae s. l. and the lack of any consensus thereon. PTERIDOPHYTA/ASPLENIACEAE. You lose some, you win some: an odd Asplenium (Grayum et al. 9709) from ca. 2100 m elevation on the Pacific slope of the Cordillera de Talamanca near Copey de Dota was cited in Flora mesoamericana Vol. 1 (1995) as the Costa Rican voucher for A. lamprocaulon Fée, a rare sp. otherwise known only from southern Mexico. Now that collection has been redetermined by former US pteridologist David B. Lellinger as Asplenium obesum Baker, an even lesser-known sp. previously recorded only from southern Mexico and Guatemala. PTERIDOPHYTA/DENNSTAEDTIACEAE. One of Manual co-PI Mike Grayum's 1993 collections (10611) from Cerro Anguciana, the highest peak in the Fila Costeña, was recently determined by David B. Lellinger as Dennstaedtia cornuta (Kaulf.) Mett., apparently a segregate of D. dissecta (Sw.) T. Moore. As far as we can tell, this represents the first Mesoamerican record for this otherwise South American sp., previously known from Colombia to Bolivia and Brazil. Oddly, Cerro Anguciana is also the only Mesoamerican station for another South American Dennstaedtia, D. sprucei T. Moore [see The Cutting Edge 3(1): 4, Jan. 1996]. TOP