Abstracts of Posters


Zanthoxylum duplicipunctatum
Wright ex Griseb.:
Rediscovery of a Rutaceae after 136 years.

Rosalina Berazaín Iturralde
Jardín Botánico Nacional, Universidad de la Habana.
Carretera del Rocio, km 3½, Calabazar, Ciudad de La Habana, C.P. 19230, Cuba.
Fax: 53-7-54-4184, e-mail: hajb@ceniai.inf.cu,
Christa Beurton
Freie Universität Berlin, Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem,
Königin-Luise-Straße 6-8, 14191 Berlin, Germany
& Armando J. Urquiola Cruz
Instituto Superior Pedagógico, Dpto. de Biología, Calle Los Pinos final y Ave. Borrego, Pinar del Río, Cuba.

On June 26^th of one of the years 1860-1864 (probably no earlier than 1862), Charles Wright collected in western Cuba at "Bahia Honda, Cajálbana" (which is now Prov. Pinar del Río) a flowering twig from a shrub which Grisebach designated in 1866 as Z. duplicipunctatum. The vegetational composition of the original locality was unknown. Though the Sierra de Cajálbana has been the subject of considerable botanical work during the last 30 years, Z. duplicipunctatum never was found there. On 9 March 2000 the authors discovered in the serpentine thickets of the Cajálbana mountains, in the vicinity of a trail that had been newly cut for fire protection in 1998, and immediately next to flowering specimens of Z .rolandii, a (sterile) population of Z. duplicipunctatum. The plants are completely without spines like all other Cuban members of the Zanthoxylum group with stellate hairs. The leaves are crowded at the end of the twigs and have a pleasantly aromatic odour, but of lesser intensity than that in Z. rolandii. The habit of the plants, leaves and flowers are described.