Catalogue of Seed Plants of the West Indies
Abstract
Acevedo-Rodríguez,
Pedro and Strong, Mark T. Catalogue of Seed Plants of the West Indies. Smithsonian
Contributions to Botany, number 98, xxv + 1192 pages, 3 maps, 4 tables, 2012.—The catalogue enumerates
all taxa of Gymnosperms, Dicotyledons, and Monocotyledons occurring in the West Indies archipelago
excluding the islands off the coast of Venezuela (Netherlands Antilles, Venezuelan Antilles, Tobago, and
Trinidad). For each accepted taxon, nomenclature (including synonyms described from the West Indies and
their references to publication), distribution in the West Indies (including endemic, native, or exotic status),
common names, and a numerical listing of literature records are given. Type specimen citations are provided
for accepted names and synonyms of Cyperaceae, Sapindaceae, and some selected genera in several families
including the Apocynaceae (Plumeria), Aquifoliaceae (Ilex), and Santalaceae (Dendrophthora). More than
30,000 names were treated comprising 208 families, 2,033 genera, and 12,279 taxa, which includes exotic
and commonly cultivated plants. The total number of indigenous taxa was approximately 10,470 of which
71% (7,446 taxa) are endemic to the archipelago or part of it. Fifteen new names, 37 combinations, and 7
lectotypifications are validated. A searchable website of this catalogue, maintained and continuously updated
at the Smithsonian Institution, is available at http://botany.si.edu/antilles/WestIndies/.
... 23 It is known by several common names: Aloe (Barbados, Tobago), lalwa (Haiti), sábila (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico), and sinkle bible (Jamaica). 24 e presumed origin of the species is Arabia, Somalia, or Sudan, although its native distribution range remains disputed. 23 Aloe vera is available in commerce worldwide as a common houseplant. ...
... Common names include higuera, higuereta, ricino (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico), palme cristi, ricin, huile montecristi, or huile ricin (Haiti), and castor oil plant (Bahamas, Jamaica, Lesser Antilles). 24 e oil derived from the seeds (aceite de higuereta) is popular as a medicine in the Dominican community in NYC. Although few people mentioned ingesting the seeds directly, this should always be avoided since they are very toxic, especially when chewed, and can result in hospitalization and even death. ...
... Common names include Soursop (Jamaica, Lesser Antilles), guanábana (Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Lesser Antilles), corossol (Dominican Republic, Lesser Antilles), and coro(s)solier (Haiti, Lesser Antilles). 24 Its native range remains disputed and perhaps stretches from Mexico to Central and South America. ere exist con icting opinions as to its nativity status in the Caribbean. ...
In this chapter, I share insights from a long-term collaboration with the Dominican community in New York City (NYC) and their peers living in the Dominican Republic (DR) that has spanned more than fifteen years. Using methods from ethnobotany research, the results show that Dominicans use plants as medicines for a wide variety of health conditions in both geographies, including prevalent chronic, infectious, and self-limiting diseases, as well as culturally-defined folk illnesses. Several plant species are hallmarks of Caribbean traditional medicine, and these species' diverse medicinal uses are either continued or modified after migration from the DR to NYC. This chapter also highlights several conditions known as folk illnesses or culture-bound illnesses (CBIs), which often remain unknown to healthcare providers and “outsiders” to the community. These folk illnesses are recognized and diagnosed by Dominican community members through sets of symptoms with shared cultural meanings that drive people’s choice of treatment. The results summarized here make a plea for understanding health and illness from an emic (insider’s) perspective. The rich body of knowledge that is inherent to Caribbean traditional medicine merits continued attention, respect, recognition, and unbiased documentation from a cross-cultural perspective.
... e Caribbean island of Puerto Rico has been subjected to the introduction of non-native plant species for centuries (Hill 1899;Birdsey and Weaver 1982;Dietz 1986;Miller and Lugo 2009), which now account for a signi cant proportion of its documented ora (Axelrod 2011;Acevedo-Rodríguez and Strong 2012;Gann et al. 2022;USDA-NRCS 2022). e majority of non-native plants in the region have been intentionally introduced (i.e., deliberately brought in and planted or dispersed by humans; Rojas-Sandoval and Acevedo-Rodríguez 2015), and their presence on the island is the result of a variety of practices, including the cultivation for agriculture, Author for correspondence: silvestrinistiv@gmail.com ...
... We reviewed the island's most comprehensive and recent botanical checklists (e.g., Liogier and Martorell 2000;Axelrod 2011;Acevedo-Rodríguez and Strong 2012), as well as literature from journal articles and other sources (e.g., books, government reports), and conducted a search on local collection records in the digital databases of the following herbaria: MAPR (https://herbaria.plants.ox.ac.uk/bol/ MAPR), NY (http://sweetgum.nybg.org/science/ ...
For centuries, the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico has been subjected to the introduction of nonnative plant species. Various human-related activities such as agriculture, horticulture, and ornamental landscaping have resulted in the naturalization of numerous species, some of which are now representative of the island’s natural landscape. Recent floristic surveys in anthropized areas across the island yielded three new non-native plant records. We present the first reports with vouchers of Asystasia gangetica (L.) T. Anderson subsp. micrantha (Nees) Ensermu, Emilia praetermissa Milne-Redh., and Acanthocereus tetragonus (L.) Hummelinck for Puerto Rico. We review their geographic distributions, status on the island, and introduction pathways, and offer comments on the importance of surveying disturbed and unprotected areas.
Antecedentes y Objetivos: Se presenta la flora del bosque seco de Cerros del Tabacal y del bosque semideciduo de Loma del Agua de la Reserva Forestal Guanito en la Cordillera Central de República Dominicana. Existen muy pocos registros de las especies de esta reserva. Por ello, el objetivo general fue inventariar la flora vascular de ambas montañas; los objetivos específicos, determinar la diversidad y riqueza de especies en la Reserva Forestal Guanito, documentar su distribución, estado de conservación y formas de vida, y registrar la variación en la composición florística.
Métodos: Se delimitaron tres parcelas de 10 × 10 m y dos transectos de 60 × 2 m en cada bosque, basados en el área mínima de expresión de las especies, y fueron ubicados en las áreas con cobertura vegetal densa. Se calculó el índice de diversidad de Shannon, el índice de dominancia de Berger-Parker y el coeficiente de similitud de Jaccard.
Resultados clave: En el bosque seco se registraron 81 especies, distribuidas en 72 géneros y 31 familias; en el bosque semideciduo, 110 especies de 96 géneros y 50 familias. Fabaceae fue la familia con mayor riqueza de géneros en ambos cerros (siete y ocho, respectivamente), y Tillandsia el género con mayor riqueza de especies (seis y cinco, respectivamente). Con mayor abundancia de individuos destacó Tillandsia recurvata (173 individuos) en el bosque seco y en el bosque semideciduo, Savia sessiliflora (39). El índice de Shannon mostró que el bosque semideciduo tiene mayor diversidad que el bosque seco, y los resultados del coeficiente de Jaccard indican que ambos bosques presentan una composición florística muy diferente.
Conclusiones: Este estudio reafirma la importancia y riqueza florística de los bosques de República Dominicana y constituye el primer inventario florístico para la Reserva Forestal Guanito.
Botanical gardens are essential for conservation of cacti diversity. Through the living collections that they preserve in their enclosures, multiple scientific investigations are carried out and conservation and environmental education programs are developed. This paper presents the living collection of cacti from the Botanical Garden of Santiago (Dominican Republic) with information on the geographical origin, ethnobotanical uses, and the conservation status of the species.
Understanding the role of alien species in forest communities, and how native and alien species interact to shape the composition and structure of contemporary forests, is of critical importance to invasion ecology and natural resource management. We used vegetation data collected over a 20-year period in 341 permanent plots representing remnants of closed-canopy forests and post-agricultural secondary forests across Puerto Rico to compare changes in the composition and abundance of native and alien woody species in plots with and without aliens across different forest types and to assess whether aliens and natives show divergence or convergence regarding functional roles and ecological strategies. We also tested the applicability of Grime's CSR (competitive, stress-tolerant, and ruderal strategies) theory to explain naturali-zation success. Species richness and abundance of natives are consistently lower in plots in which aliens are present compared with those without them. This negative association between aliens and natives has been consistent over the 20 years and across all forest types. Both native and total richness slightly increased over the 20 years, but the increase in native species richness was three times lower in plots with aliens relative to those without aliens. The CSR classification provided insight into the naturalization success of aliens. Corroborating the "join the locals" hypothesis, aliens use the same functional spaces as natives. The exception is in dry forests, where aliens and natives differ in the use of functional spaces, a result that corroborates the "try harder" hypothesis. Generally, aliens were better competitors compared with natives, and natives were more stress-tolerant than aliens. Our combined results suggest that alien species may inhibit population growth or even drive local changes in native plant communities by transforming the assembly and dynamics of tropical forests. Ultimately, modifications linked to invasive species may have significant implications for local forests, affecting their regeneration and productivity. More definitive conclusions require additional plot censuses, and analyses of disturbance regimes and stand-age structure to reveal the long-term implications of alien species on regenerating tropical forests, including their vulnerability, resilience and adaptive capacity to cope with various aspects of climate change.
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