Main | Family List (MO) | Family List (INBio) | Cutting Edge Draft Treatments | Guidelines | Checklist | Citing | Editors The Cutting Edge Volume XXIV, Number 4, October 2017 News and Notes | Leaps and Bounds | Germane Literature | Season's Pick ASTERACEAE. The Manual contributor for this family, Alexánder Rodríguez (CR), has been telling us for several years now about a Sonchus-like weed that he has been unable to identify with the material at hand, having rejected it as being either of the two spp. of Sonchus [S. asper (L.) Hill and S. oleraceus L.] known from the country. But we, ahem, ignored him. Until, of course, one of us stumbled onto it (Hammel 27363; CR, MO) for himself! Having collected it several times by now—including a plant that conveniently showed up in his own vegetable garden—Hammel became obsessed with the thing and has vowed to collect it every time he sees it! By all appearances, this beast is at the very beginning of an invasion into the Valle Central, calling to mind the recent appearance and takeover of virtually every vacant lot in that area by Crassocephalum crepidioides (Benth.) S. Moore [see under "Asteraceae, this column, in the Cutting Edge 20(3), Jul. 2013]. So finally, with the above-cited specimen in hand and with the help of MO specialist and friend John Pruski, we now have a determination: nothing other than vile and vulgar Sonchus arvensis L., rather easily to be spied at the Monsanto Building parking area, right outside the window from where this is being typed. Okay, but our Costa Rican plants differ in numerous ways from S. arvensis in St. Louis, foremost among them being their much more robust stature, long taproots (rather than branched rhizomes), rather densely woolly involucres, reddish color of the outer face of the outer corollas, and slightly larger fruits. This would be the first report of Sonchus arvensis from Costa Rica, and perhaps the first reliable report from anywhere in Mesoamerica (the sp. is included in Flora mesoamericana draft treatment of Asteraceae on sole the basis of apparently unvouchered literature reports from Guatemala). But stay tuned: we have a feeling the last word is not yet in on the identity of our plants. To see more of it than you might want, go to Hammel's flickr site. CYATHEACEAE. The rare sp. Cyathea stolzei A. R. Sm. ex Lellinger, a dwarf tree-fern with once-pinnate fronds, was discovered for the first time at the Estación Biológica La Selva by a group led by pteridologist James E. ("Eddie") Watkins, Jr. (GRCH). This sp. has been collected several times in the general vicinity (e.g., at Finca El Bejuco), so it is not a total shock that it has turned up at La Selva. Nonetheless, it is always sobering to learn that a distinctive and conspicuous sp. has somehow managed to evade more than four decades of intensive botanical inventory [including, in the case of ferns, a meticulous and systematic dragnet of the entire property by Mirka Jones; see The Cutting Edge 14(3): 1, Jul. 2007]. We owe this report to La Selva Head of Scientific Operations Orlando Vargas, who also prepared the requisite voucher (O. Vargas 2208, LSCR). ELAEOCARPACEAE. In a (de)parting shot, Manual associate Daniel Santamaría (MO) reports his discovery in Costa Rica of the recently described Sloanea paucinervia T. D. Penn., otherwise known only from the eastern half of Panama. The first Costa Rican record is Aguilar 4538 (CR, MO), a fruiting specimen from 640 m elevation on the Península de Osa. Okay, full disclosure: this is not so much a new record as a new identification; the specimen in question was discussed as anomalous in the Manual Elaeocarpaceae treatment (2010) under Sloanea terniflora (DC.) Standl. (we got the authority citation wrong!), wherefrom it was duly distinguished. Daniel also stumbled upon the Costa Rican record of Sloanea platyphylla Standl., which was recently attributed to Costa Rica [see under "Pennington," this column, in The Cutting Edge 23(4), Oct. 2016] sans the citation of a voucher. The critical specimen (in bud) is J. L. Chaves & Muñoz 637 (CR, MO), determined by Pennington himself, from 800 m elevation on the Atlantic slope of the Cordillera de Guanacaste (Volcán Tenorio). FABACEAE. Manual co-PI Nelson Zamora, based in the Guanacaste region of late (see also under "News and Notes"), reports his recent collection of Lonchocarpus schiedeanus (Schltdl.) Harms (Zamora 9970) from the Atlantic foothills of Volcán Orosí, at the northern extremity of the Cordillera de Guanacaste. This marks the first record of this sp., rare in Costa Rica, from both the Cordillera de Guanacaste and the Área de Conservación Guanacaste. It may also be the first Costa Rican record from the Atlantic slope, the lone prior such record (indicated in Nelson's Manual Fabaceae treatment) having been based on a sterile collection of somewhat dubious identity. TOP