NOTES ON THE CYCLANTHACEAE OF SODTHERN CENTRAL AMERICA INCLUDING THREE NEW SPECIES Barry E. Hammel, Department of Botany, Duke University, Durham, NC 27706. Current address: Missouri Botanical Garden, P.O. Box 299, St. Louis, MO 63166. Although often abundant in tropical primary forest, the Cyclanthaceae have been poorly known for two major reasons: they are most diverse in some of the least explored habitats, namely the wettest areas, and the plants are difficult to collect and thus often ignored by collectors. The following notes and new species, resulting from over two years of field work at La Selva field station in northeastern Costa Rica and four field trips specifically to study Cyclanthaceae in various parts of Costa Rica and Panama, are presented here to provide names for new species in the Flora of La Selva (Hammel, 1986). NOTES When Harling (1958) monographed this family he treated a total of 180 species in eleven genera. At that time 37 species in eight genera were known from Central America. Recent collecting, especially in Costa Rica and Panama indicates that there are probably twice that many species in the region. All of these will be treated in the Cyclanthaceae for Flora Mesoamericana, which I am preparing. No additional genera have been found since Harling's monograph, but 29 new species have been described (Schultes, 1959; Harling, 1963, 1972, 1973; Wilder, 1978; Grayum & Hammel, 1982; Galeano & Bernal, 1984), four of them from Central America . It is not yet clear whether the increase in numbers of species known from Central America will be due more to newly discovered endemic species or to range extensions from South America. In many cases this question can only be answered by revisionary work with a strong field orientation; nearly half of the species in Harling's monograph were known only from the type collection. Nevertheless, range extensions for several distinctive species can now be indicated. Range Extensions Although Cvclanthus is usually treated as a monotypic genus, the first new species in the family to be described after 1958 was C. indivisus Schultes (1959). This species was described from the Amazonas commisary 5
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