NEW OR NOTEWORTHY PLANTS FROM COLOMBIA 

 AND CENTRAL AMERICA-2. 



By Henry Pittier. 



MAGNOLIACEAE. 

 THE COSTA RICAN SPECIES OF TALAUMA. 



The genus Talauma is re})resented in Costa Rica by two species, 

 one of which grows at the lower edge of the "tierra templada," while 

 the other is conspicuous among the larger trees of the upper forest 

 belt on the volcanoes Barba and Poas. Heretofore the Just species 

 has been considered identical with T. ccspededi of Central Colombia, 

 a view that is not tenable, for reasons which are stated below. 

 Talauma poasana Pittier, sp. nov. 



Medium-sized tree. Young twigs glabrous, regularly marked by the circular 

 scars of the caducous stipules. 



Leaves coriaceous, glabrous, petiolate. Petioles 3 to 3.5 cm. long, canaliculate, 

 rather slender. Leaf blades 10 to 14 cm. long, 5 to cm. broad, acute at base, with 

 a more or less rounded acumen, light green and glossy above, whitish green and finely 

 reticulate beneath. Margin very entire, slightly revolute. 



Pedicels 6 cm. long from bract to perianth. Perianth formed of 9 thick, coriaceous 

 divisions, the 3 exterior ones (sepals) larger, about 6 cm. long by 2 cm. broad, elliptic- 

 ovate, greenish and callose on the back, cream white with purplish tinges inside, 

 the interior ones obovate-spathulate and conchiform, of the same length as the former 

 but narrower ami entirely cream while. Stamens numerous; anthers sessile, about 

 12 mm. long, introrse. Carpels numerous, fusiform, and forming a strobiliform gynoe- 

 cium. Ovary 2-ovulate; style dorsi-sulcate, ending in an obtuse reflexed tip. 



Fruits and seeds unknown. 



Costa Rica: Rancho Flores, altitude 2,050 meters, at the foot of the Barba Volcano, 

 Pittier, flowers, May, 1888; Tonduz, flowers, February, 1890 (Instituto fis-geog. Costa 

 Rica nos. 269, 2144); El Achiote, Poas Volcano, 2,240 meters, Pittier, flowers, July, 

 1888 (Instituto fis-geog. Costa Rica no. 328); La Quesera, Poas Volcano, 2,300 meters, 

 Pittier 2043, March 31, 1907 (U. S. National Herbarium no. 578441, type). 



Mr. Donnell Smith considers this species the same as Talauma cespedesii Triana 

 & Planch., a large tree reported from the Colombian province of Bogota. Of the 

 latter, there are no specimens extant in any collection, and the authors based their 

 incomplete diagnosis on Doctor Cespedes's original and probably untechnical descrip- 

 tion published about 1840, in Bogota, on a loose sheet, in which the plant received 

 the generic name of Santanderia, from one of the protagonists of the great South Amer- 

 ican Revolution. The few characters given in Triana and Planchon's Memoir, then, 

 are not at all reliable and, moreover, they agree very imperfectly with the above 

 description of the Costa Rican specimens. For these reasons I prefer to give a new 

 name to our species and to leave it for future explorers to find again Cespedes's tree, ao 



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