Cunuria crassipes was first collected in Colombia by 
Allen in 1948 (Baldwin and Schultes in Bot. Mus. Leaf. 
Harvard Univ. 12 (1947) 886). His collection was made 
on the Rio Papuri which forms part of the boundary 
between Brazil and Colombia. Later, Cunuria crassipes 
was found in the adjacent Brazilian area of the upper Rio 
Negro and some of its afluents by Baldwin and by Frées 
(Baldwin and Schultes, loc. cit.), never at any great dis- 
tance from the type locality. For this reason, the species 
was considered to represent a rather restricted endemic. 
The most significant collections made recently in the 
Colombian trapécio amazénico are Schultes 6909 and 
Black & Schultes 46-371, for they establish the presence 
of Cunuria crassipes very far to the south of the area 
hitherto considered to be the exclusive home of the spe- 
cies. In 1945, Schultes 6909, with several opened capsules 
but no seeds, was collected during a preliminary study 
of a low caatinga-like or savanna area on the rather high 
divide between the Rios Hamacayacu (Amazon affluent) 
and Cotuhé (Putumayo affluent). The next year, Mr. 
George A. Black of the Instituto Agronémico do Norte 
visited this locality and made the collection Black & 
Schultes 46-371. This collection was sterile, but the large, 
unusually broad-ovate shape, the relatively thin-papy- 
raceous texture, and the lack of a waxy or glaucescent 
condition of the upper surface of the leaves all suggested 
that it might represent a distinet form of Cunuria eras- 
sipes. The isolation of this station from the nearest known 
locality of the species seemed to increase the possibility 
that these differences might be of significance. Accord- 
ingly, in September 1948, I sent my assistant, Senor 
Francisco Lopez, thoroughly familiar with Cunuria, to 
collect more material from the same locality. Lépez 4 
and 5 correspond in every detail with Scehultes 6909 and 
Black & Schultes 46-371 and are indeed slightly different 
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