NEWS AND NOTES | RECENT TREATMENTS | LEAPS AND BOUNDS | GERMANE LITERATURE
POACEAE. J. Francisco Morales (INB).
Chico’s productivity knows no bounds, as he delivers big-time with this, the final, outstanding monocot family treatment for the Manual. Poaceae, the most economically important and second-largest monocot family in Costa Rica, is represented by 487 spp. (excluding 8 hypotheticals) in 140 genera. However, 97 (20%) of the spp. are introduced, and 38 (27%) of the genera comprise only introduced spp.--unusually high totals. By far the most sp.-rich genera are Paspalum (47 spp., including 2 introduced), Panicum (excluding Dichanthelium; 34 spp., 1 introduced), and Chusquea (21 spp.). The only other genera with more than 10 indigenous spp. are Lasiacis (12 spp), Axonopus (11 spp.), and Muhlenbergia (11 spp.); with introduced spp. factored in, these are surpassed or rivaled by Eragrostis (17 spp., 8 introduced), Digitaria (14 spp., 6 introduced), Festuca (excluding Vulpia; 12 spp., 4 introduced), and Setaria (11 spp., 2 introduced). We score 25 spp. and 1 var. as endemic to Costa Rica; a disproportionate total of 14 of the endemic spp. are bambusoids, including 7 spp. of Chusquea and 3 spp. of Rhipidocladum. One sp., an Aulonemia known only by sterile collections from the Península de Osa, is given a provisional name ("sp. A"). This contribution adds 75 spp. and several genera (e.g., Dichanthium, Enteropogon, Nardus, Neurolepis, Otatea, Parodiolyra, Triticum) to those formally treated in the late Richard W. Pohl’s (1980) Flora costaricensis account of the family (Fieldiana, Bot. n. s. 4: 1--608). These additions were already attributed to Costa Rica in Flora mesoamericana (6: 184--402. 1994), with the exception of the following: Bouteloua curtipendula (Michx.) Torr. (see "Leaps and Bounds," below), Cortaderia nitida (Kunth) Pilger, Luziola bahiensis (Steud.) Hitchc., Panicum altum Hitchc. & Chase (see "Leaps and Bounds," below), Paspalum urvillei Steud. (see "Leaps and Bounds," last issue), Triticum aestivum L., and Zeugites panamensis Swallen.
THEACEAE. Quírico Jiménez (INB).
The family is here circumscribed generously, to include both Pellicieraceae and Ternstroemiaceae. The Costa Rican total of 14 spp. is apportioned among six genera: Cleyera, Freziera, Gordonia (including Laplacea), Pelliciera, Symplococarpon, and Ternstroemia. Freziera (6 spp.) is most diverse; the remaining genera have just 1 Costa Rican sp. each, with the exception of Ternstroemia (3 spp.) and Gordonia (2 spp.). Two spp. (in Freziera and Ternstroemia) are given provisional names (both "sp. A"). Other than these, only Ternstroemia multiovulata Gómez-Laur., Q. Jiménez & N. Zamora is indicated as endemic to Costa Rica. The last treatment of Costa Rican Theaceae, by Standley (1937), accounted for just 6 spp. in four genera (Cleyera and Freziera having been subsumed under Eurya).