Two New Species of Diospyros (Ebenaceae) from Mesoamerica Sandra KnappDepartment of Botany, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, United KingdomABSTRACT. Diospyros hartmanniana, of cloud for-ests in Panama and Costa Rica, and Diospyros whi-tei, of lowland forests in central and eastern Pan-ama, are described and illustrated. Theirsimilarities to and differences from other Meso-american species of Diospyros are discussed. The genus Diospyros consists of approximately500 species of small to large trees distributedthroughout the tropics and subtropics of the world.The last worldwide revision of the family Ebena-ceae was that of Hiern (1873), where some 250species were recognized. Hiern recognized five gen-era, Royena L., Euclea Murray, Maba J. R. Forster& G. Forster, Tetraclis Hiern, and Diospyros L. InDiospyros s. str., Hiern recognized 14 sections de-fined on characters of the seed and inflorescence.Only a fraction of the approximately 80 New Worldtaxa were included in Hiern's monograph. Bakhu-izen van den Brink (1936), in monographing theMalaysian species of Ebenaceae, placed the genusMaba into synonymy with Diospyros at the rank ofsubgenus. He divided the Asian species of Dios-pyros into 36 sections, most of which are probablyartificial (White, 1983). Royena and Maba are cur-rently placed within the genus Diospyros s.l.(White, 1983), and Old World species previouslyregarded as Maba are placed in section Forsteria(Bakhuizen van den Brink) White. In his treatmentof Ebenaceae for Flora Zambesiaca, White (1983)recognized 11 sections, most of which were endem-ic to Africa. Section Forsteria has several speciesin the New World and is defined by its possessionof an ovary with three bi-ovulate locules. In Me-soamerica only D. inconstans Jacquin and D. sali-cifolia Willdenow are members of this group. Forthe rest of the taxa occurring in the Neotropics, nosectional classification has been proposed. In Asia,where some 200 species of Diospyros occur, thesectional classification proposed by Bakhuizen vanden Brink (1936) has not been taken up in floras,and many species have been described relativelyrecently. In the course of preparing the treatmentof Diospyros for Flora Mesoamericana the followingnew taxa were encountered.NovoN 7: 256-260. 1997.Diospyros hartmanniana S. Knapp, sp. nov. TYPE: Panama. Chiriquf: near Costa Rican border, ca. 13 road-km from Rio Sereno, Finca Hartmann, 1550-1750 m, 8050'N, 82�45'W, 23 Oct. 1992, G. McPherson & P M. Richard-son 15959 (holotype, BM; isotypes, MO, PMA not seen). Figure 1. Species haec a Diospyros campechiana Lundell, foliiscoriaceis petiolo breviori (6-9 mm longo vs. 10-20 mmnlongo), inflorescentia masculina tantum 3-5-flora, inflo-rescentia feminei uniflora, floribus carnosis. staminibus fi-lamentis aureo-pubescentibus, baccis globosis, liffert. Trees, 6-20 m; branchlets glabrous or minutelystrigose with scattered black trichomes, dryingshiny black, the buds coarsely and densely black-strigose. Leaves 6-11 X 3-5 cm, elliptic, thick andcoriaceous, glabrous above, sparsely strigose withscattered coarse black trichomes beneath, the tri-chomes denser near the veins, glabrescent, theyoung leaves densely black-strigose beneath, thetrichomes breaking off and leaving black dots onthe leaf undersides, the base acute, the marginssomewhat revolute, the apex broadly acute, the ul-timate tip rounded; lateral nerves 5-6 pairs, incon-spicuous, the midvein drying darker beneath; pet-iole 6-9 mm, fleshy. Inflorescences axillary alongthe current growth. Male flowers in 3-4(-5)-flow-ered subsessile to shortly pedunculate cymules, thepeduncle and bracts black-strigose, the pedicelsca. 0.5 mm; calyx 1.5-2 mm, fleshy, black-strigosewithout, glabrous within, drying black, the tube ca.1 mm, flat, the lobes 5, ca. 1.5 mm, semiorbicular;corolla 4-5 mm, urceolate to somewhat salverform,glabrous throughout, drying black, the tube 3-3.5mm, the lobes 4, ca. 1.5 mm, broadly deltate, themargins thinner and overlapping in bud; stamensca. 10-12(-20), 1.5-2 mm (not including the elon-gate connective), densely golden pubescent, theconnective long-apiculate; pistillode ca. 1 mm,black-strigose at the apex, otherwise glabrous. Fe-male flowers (seen in young fruit only) solitary, ses-sile or nearly so, the pedicel 0-0.5 mm. Fruits 1.5-2.5 cm diam., yellow-orange when ripe, dryingreddish brown, glabrous except for a patch of stiffblack trichomes around the persistent style base;
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