Four New Species of Dragon's Blood Croton (Euphorbiaceae) from South America

Abstract

We describe and illustrate four new species of dragon's blood trees (Croton sect. Cyclostigma) from western South America. Three of the species, Croton beckii from Bolivia and Peru, C. camposii from Peru, and C. santamartensis from Colombia, grow in montane Andean forest, whereas C. tumbesinus occurs in dry forest of the Tumbes/Piura ecoregion of western Ecuador and Peru. The characters that place them in Croton sect. Cyclostigma include the arborescent habit, the presence of reddish to yellowish latex, an indument of stellate trichomes, conspicuous and persistent stipules, acropetiolar/basilaminar nectary glands, and terminal inflorescences with bisexual cymules at the base. These new species give additional support for the Andean region being the main center of diversity of this Neotropical Croton clade, as well as being a region whose biodiversity knowledge is still incomplete.

Croton calcareus: a new species of dragon’s blood (Euphorbiaceae) from dry forest in the state of Chiapas, Mexico

“…For morphological descriptions we used a 10−60 × magnification stereo microscope. Morphological terminology follows recent taxonomic papers on Croton (e.g., Santos et al 2017;Feio et al 2018b;Riina et al 2018), and anatomical studies on trichomes and secretory structures (Webster et al 1996;Vitarelli et al 2015;Feio et al 2016;Feio et al 2018a).…”

“…Species from sect. Cyclostigma occur predominantly in mesic forests (Riina et al 2009;Arévalo et al 2017); however, a small number of species are restricted to seasonally dry forest vegetation in different areas of the Neotropics, such as C. churutensis Riina & Cornejo (Riina et al 2007) in Ecuador, C. tumbesinus Riina (Feio et al 2018b) in Peru, C. redolens Pittier in northern Venezuela and C. charaguensis Standl. in Bolivia.…”

The Neotropical Croton sect. Geiseleria (Euphorbiaceae): Classification Update, Phylogenetic Framework, and Seven New Species from South America

“…While working on several Neotropical lineages of Croton (Caruzo & Cordeiro 2013, Feio et al 2018a, Riina et al 2018, regional floras (Carneiro-Torres 2009, Santos et al 2017), and the Flora do Brasil 2020 project (Cordeiro et al 2015;Silva et al 2020), we discovered a number of specimens that clearly belong to Croton sect. Geiseleria but were unassignable to any known species in the group.…”

A new species of dragon’s blood Croton (Euphorbiaceae) from Serra dos Órgãos (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

“…CrotonsectionCyclostigma, which includes species commonly known as dragon’s blood, comprises 46 species distributed from Mexico to northern Argentina (Feio et al 2018a). The new species, described here, increases the total number in the section to 47 and to ten species in the ARF.…”

“…The new species, described here, increases the total number in the section to 47 and to ten species in the ARF. This section is characterised by fast-growing trees, generally occurring in secondary vegetation, roadsides, river banks and landslide areas of wet forests (Riina et al 2009), but there are a few species also occurring in dry forests (Riina et al 2007, Feio et al 2018a). The common name, dragon’s blood, comes from the presence of abundant and often reddish latex, which is used by indigenous and rural populations for wound-healing, preventing infections and other ailments (Ubillas et al 1994, Jones 2003, Smith 2006).…”