Plant collections are full of surprises.
Plant collections are full of surprises. It may take decades to id plant samples, but it’s worth the effort, especially when some of these species are not known from anywhere else on Earth.
Botanists José Luis Fernández-Alonso, of the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid, and Ernesto Campos, a research technician at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama, named six new tree species for science based on comparisons made to collections of dried plants throughout the Neotropics. Of these six, three of the new species have only been found in Panama: Matisia petaquillae, Matisia changuinolana and Matisia aquilarum. The new species from Colombia identified in the same report are Matisia genesiana, Matisia mutatana and Matisia rufula.
The first two Panamanian species were named in reference to the places where they were collected and the third, Matisia aquilarum, found in Chagres National Park, was named in reference to the presence of a Harpy eagle nest in the tree, recorded by ornithologist Karla Aparicio and botanist Ruby Zambrano.
Read more at Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Image: Matisia aquilarum, found in Panama's Chagres National Park, was named in reference to the presence of a harpy eagle nest in the tree. (Credit: STRI Herbarium)
