floral (by dissection when flowers present) and fruit characters. This work yielded a preliminary 
list of accepted names in Cinnamomum and other genera. This survey also constituted a first 
approach to evaluate those characters that might be useful later in defining the species. 
The rest of the exsiccatae were studied morphologically and arranged in sets of specimens 
with similar characters to be matched later with types and named. The study of sets of specimens 
with similar morphology served simultaneously various other purposes: 1) to distinguish the 
species and define how distinct they are, 2) to evaluate how variable species are in their features, 
3) to find out if the different species had several names (synonyms), 4) to detect correlation of 
morphological variability with ecological or geographical aspects, and 5) to determine which 
taxa still need more field work to get additional material for their study, and cover missing 
characters, morphological variation, or possible spurious gaps in their geographical range. 
Species delimitation was based on consistency of combination of characters. In other 
words, species’ diagnostic characters were evaluated for extent of correlation among them, and 
extent of overlapp with other species' characters. Important vegetative features in species 
recognition were type of hairs of the indument, leaf venation pattern, presence and characteristics 
of domatia, and leaf shape. Salient reproductive characters were external pubescence of tepals, 
hypanthium pubescence, presence and position of abscission lines in tepals, persistence of tepals 
in fruit, and extent of distal swelling of pedicel. 
Descriptions were prepared once species were delimited. For each species the same 
information from vegetative (stem features, leaf size, shape and venation pattern, pubescence, 
and presence of domatia) and reproductive (inflorescence type, perianth features, morphology of 
androecium and gynoecium, and morphology of fruit) characters were recorded with the aim of 
10 
