Abstract
A monograph of Curarea, a neotropical genus in the plant family Menispermaceae, is presented. Curarea is distinguished from related genera by the combination of staminate flowers with sepals in two whorls and pistillate flowers with three petals, three carpels and usually elongated carpophores bearing three sessile drupelets. Nine species are recognised, amongst them two new to science, C. gentryana from Ecuador and C. barnebyana, from Ecuador and Peru. Additionally, two new combinations, C. iquitana and C. tomentocarpa, are proposed for distinct taxa recovered in a multivariate analysis of quantitative characters of the broadly distributed and morphologically variable C. toxicofera. The anatomy and morphology of species in the genus is documented, identification key, species descriptions, distribution maps and a preliminary conservation assessment for all accepted species are also provided. Of the nine species recognised here, C. barnebyana is assigned a preliminary status of Vulnerable, C. crassa (known only from the coastal Atlantic Forest in Brazil) and C. gentryana (endemic to western Ecuador) are both assigned a preliminary status of Endangered.
Highlights
Similar indumentum is found in C. tecunarum, but the primary branches of the staminate inflorescences of the latter are laxly branched, while the primary branches of the inflorescences of C. barnebyana are condensed similar to those of C. crassa and C. candicans
The only other species with similar web-like indumentum is C. gentryana, described below, but this lacks the brownish appressed trichomes on the main veins of C. candicans and, its web-like indumentum persists on old leaves
The thick layer, from which the specific epithet is likely derived, was described as the mesocarp (Barneby 1996), it is likely that the mesocarp in C. crassa, as in C. barnebyana, C. tecunarum and C. aff. iquitana, is mucilaginous and no longer noticeable in dried fruits, as was the case reported for C. tecunarum (Barneby and Krukoff 1971)
Summary
The taxonomic treatment is based upon the examination of 429 herbarium collections from: A, B, BM, BR, ECON, F, G, GH, IAN, INB, K, MG, MO, NY, P, QCNE, R, RB, U, US and USM (acronyms follow Thiers continuously updated). Curarea candicans differs from the other species in the first group by its web-like indumentum and its unique drum-like carpophores, its narrow vessel elements being more similar to species of the second group In the latter group, which includes C. cuatrecasasii, C. gentryana, C. iquitana, C. tomentocarpa and C. toxicofera (Table 5), the innermost pair of primary veins on mature leaves are acrodromous imperfect, the species have a strigillose-tomentellous indumentum on their abaxial leaf surface (weblike/tomentellous in C. gentryana), staminate inflorescences with lax primary branches, these with 4–6 branch orders, elongate carpophores and a few other anatomical features (Table 5). C. barnebyana is assigned a preliminary status of “Vulnerable ” [VU, A3c + B1b(i,ii,iii,iv) + B2b(i,ii,iii,iv)]
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