NEW OR NOTEWORTHY PLANTS FROM COLOMBIA 
AND CENTRAL AMERICA—8.’ 
By Henry PITTIER. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Another installment is here offered of results obtained by the 
writer in his study of the botany of Middle America. As in previous 
papers, the groups dealt with are largely trees, which, from the 
difficulty of securing adequate herbarium material, have been greatly 
neglected and misunderstood. 
MYRISTICACEAE. 
Virola merendonis Pittier, sp. nov. 
A large tree, up to 25 meters high, the trunk straight, the branching radiate, 
forming a short depressed conical crown; bark grayish, smooth; young branch- 
lets and leaf buds densely rufous-tomentose. 
Leaves large, petiolate, subcoriaceous; petioles 1 cm. long, about 4 mm. 
thick, densely rufous-tomentose, the upper groove bordered on each side by a 
narrow wing running from the stem to the base of the blade; leaf blades oblong- 
lanceolate, truncate and usually emarginate at the base, gradually attenuate 
and very acute or seldom rounded-obtuse at the apex, 18 to 25 em. long, 7 to 8 cm. 
broad, minutely reticulate above and glabrous except on the costa, softly 
tawny-tomentose beneath, the costa subimpressed and hairy on the upper face 
of the leaf, very prominent and reddish-hairy beneath, the veins 20 to 25 pairs, 
impressed above, prominent and reddish-hairy on the lower face, arcuate and 
distinctly confluent along the margin, the transverse venules hardly visible on 
either side, but more so beneath. Flowers not known. 
Fruiting racemes about 6 em. long, bearing 2 to 6 fruits; pedicels 7 to 10 mm. 
long; fruit subglobose, about 2 cm. long and 1.7 cm. in diameter, at first rufous- 
furfurascent, later glabrous. 
Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, no. 1,012,334, collected in the forests 
of Cuchillitas, between Arranca Barba Hills and Mohanes, in the Cordillera de 
Merendon, borders of Guatemala and Honduras, in fruit, May 18, 1919, by 
H. Pittier (no. 8530). 
Another collection was made in the Molha Valley in the same region, on the 
same date, by Whitford and Stadtmiller (no. 12). 
It is not without hesitation that a new species is based upon the incomplete 
specimens at hand. There are, however, three species of Virola described from 
Central America, V. guatemalensis (Benth.) Warb., V. panamensis (Benth.) 
Warb., and V. warburgii Pittier, none of which compares satisfactorily in the 
1No. 7 of this series was published as Part 3 of the present volume (pp. 
95-132, pl. 7). 
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