Main | Family List (MO) | Family List (INBio) | Cutting Edge Draft Treatments | Guidelines | Checklist | Citing | Editors The Cutting Edge Volume XVI, Number 1, January 2009 News and Notes | Leaps and Bounds | Germane Literature | Season's Pick | Annotate your copy The main feature of this season's pick is the rare Ipomoea clavata (G. Don) Ooststr. ex J. F. Macbr. (Convolvulaceae), but we also want to focus on the Parque Nacional Diriá (Península de Nicoya), with a pictorial overview of this and some of the other unusual species or country records that we have discovered from the area in recent years. Here are just a few that were flowering this last season. Ipomoea clavata is a widespread species (Mexico to El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia to Perú) that was previously known from just a few collections in Costa Rica, gathered over 80 years ago by Alberto Brenes from Carrillos de Poás in the Central Valley. This pink flowered version with deep red markings in the bottom of the tube is perhaps taxonomically distinct from the blue-flowered version collected by Brenes. Vouchered by Hammel & Pérez 24993, INB. Left: Ipomoea muricata (L.) Jacq., likewise had not been collected in Costa Rica for many years, this one last vouchered from Parque Nacional Santa Rosa in 1978 (Liesner 4251, MO). We rediscovered fragrant night-flowering species just last November at P. N. Diriá. Vouchered by Hammel & Pérez 24992, INB. Right: Ipomoea suaveolens (M. Martens & Galeotti) Hemsl. This one, a new record for the country (previously known from Mexico, Guatemela and El Salvador), is vouchered by Hammel & Pérez 24994, INB. Doyerea emetocathartica Grosourdy (Cucurbitaceae), was reported new for the country in these pages last July ( Volume XV, Number 3, July 2008). Left: Hammel & Pérez 24997, INB. Right: Hammel & Pérez 25058, INB. And finally (for now) Tridax platyphylla B. L. Rob. (Asteraceae) was first collected in the Diriá area by Manual collaborator Alex Rodríguez (INB) and then a first for the country (see Volume VIII, Number 4, October 2001). We saw it ourselves in November of last year. Photo vouchered by Hammel & Pérez 24999, INB. Numerous other new records have been recorded from this interesting and little-explored area in and around the Diriá National Park, which includes close to, if not the, highest peaks on the Nicoya Peninsula (Cerros Brujo and Vista al Mar, ca. 930 & 940 m, respectively). TOP