New Tree Genus Discovered in Honduras

[n2doc]

Analysis by Tim Wall
Mon Oct 18, 2010 09:16 PM ET

Botanists discover new species of plants relatively frequently, but describing a new genus may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

A team led by Carmen Ulloa, associate curator at the Missouri Botanical Garden, recently discovered a new tree in northwest Honduras .

In the misty cloud forests of Parque National El Cusuco (Spanish for the Armadillo National Park), the tree was known only to the squirrels, coatimundia, and local Hondurans. The locals called it guayaba, because the fruit resembles the guava, though it is not edible by humans.

It is now known to science as Hondurodendron urceolatum.

Ulloa and her team did not immediately know that the tree was a completely unknown genus.

They first became aware of the tree in 2007. Three years of painstaking genetic and structural analysis proved to them that this 40-foot tall specimen was something completely new to science.

more

http://news.discovery.com/earth/new-tree-genus-discovered-in-honduras.html

[Sal Minella]

1. "New" to white human scientists.

The forest has known all along that it was there.

The "It Doesn't Exist Until Americans Know About It" philosophy drives me nuts.

[damntexdem]

2. New as a genus, which is a human-science classification.

But that, being scientific, is based upon explicitly-defined criteria, by which the tree is shown to be of a previously-undescribed genus.

[xchrom]

3. Major +1. nt

[Sal Minella]

5. Major for the genus-describers.

But quite immaterial to the tree, I daresay.
And equally immaterial to the people who have always known about it.

[Sal Minella]

4. Yes. n/t