THE CUTTING EDGE
Volume IX, Number 2, April
2002
NEWS AND
NOTES I TREATMENTS I LEAPS
AND BOUNDS
I GERMANE LITERATURE
I SEASON'S PICK I
BEGONIACEAE.Ý A. RodrÌguez (INB) & A. Estrada (CR).Ý The collaboration between Popeye and Armando, begun in the field, continues in print.Ý Their manuscript accounts for 38 Costa Rican spp. of Begonia, the only genus represented in the country.Ý Six spp. are given provisional names (Begonia spp. AñF), and all of these are provisionally regarded as endemic.Ý Two named spp., Begonia cooperi C. DC. and B. copeyana C. DC., are also indicated as Costa Rican endemics, and several others are shared only with Panama.Ý Apparently omitted is the recently described Begonia turrialbae Burt-Utley & Utley [see The Cutting Edge 7(1): 5, Jan. 2000], unless it is hiding out among the provisionally named entities.Ý No spp. known only in cultivation are treated formally, although several are mentioned in the genus discussion.
NYCTAGINACEAE.Ý JosÈ Gonz·lez (INB).Ý JosÈís manuscript treats seven genera and 22 spp. for Costa Rica, a significant deviation from the 12 spp. (also in seven genera) accepted by William Burger (F) in his 1983 Flora costaricensis contribution (Fieldiana, Bot. n. s., 13: 180ñ199).Ý The big difference occurs in the recalcitrant genus Neea, wherein JosÈ discriminates 11 spp. from the two ìspecies groupsî (with a total of eight ìpossible segregatesî) recognized by Burger.Ý JosÈ also accepts three spp. of Pisonia (rather than the two treated by Burger), following Amy Poolís recent Flora de Nicaragua account in segregating P. macranthocarpa (Donn. Sm.) Donn. Sm. from P. aculeata L.Ý Neea, Pisonia, and Boerhavia (also with three spp.) are the most sp.-rich genera in the country.Ý Two spp. of Nyctaginaceae are apparently Costa Rican endemics (Neea pittieri Standl. and N. popenoei P. H. Allen), and two names are applied speculatively (Neea orosiana Standl. and N. stenophylla Standl.).Ý Finally, two spp. are known mainly (Mirabilis jalapa L.) or exclusively (Bougainvillea glabra Choisy) from cultivation.