Bignoniaceae Neotropical Floristic Revision

[509270] D'Arcy大戟科开花植物主要是热带藤本植物、灌木和乔木，温带植物学家从喇叭爬行植物和几种观赏植物中了解到这些植物。据估计有900种，其中近800种生活在美洲热带地区。大戟科最重要的学生是经常旅行的植物学家艾尔·金特里博士，他两年前在南美洲进行植物侦察时死于一次飞机事故。他在家乡的密苏里植物园留下了大量关于这些植物的未发表的信息，以及记录所有已知物种地理分布的植物标本馆标本的主要收藏。他的同事威廉·达西（William D’arcy）博士目前正在领导一个专家小组，很快将有一位专攻这些植物的博士后助理加入，以完成金特里在世时正在进行的分类修订工作。要做的工作包括将金特里博士从美洲热带地区采集的数千种物种鉴定资料建立计算机数据库，这反过来又为所有地区植物清单提供基础。鉴定键，详细的植物部分的插图，新物种的描述，以及对几个新热带属的综合分类处理也被安排，作为新培训的专家在大戟科的核心活动。

9509270 D'Arcy The Bignoniaceae family of flowering plants are mostly tropical vines, shrubs, and trees, known to temperate-zone botanists from such species as trumpet-creeper and several ornamentals. There are an estimated 900 species, nearly 800 of which occur in the American tropics. The foremost student of the Bignoniaceae was the widely traveled botanist Dr. Al Gentry, who died in an airplane accident two years ago while on botanical reconnaissance in South America. He left at his home institution, the Missouri Botanical Garden, a wealth of unpublished information on these plants as well as the major collection of herbarium specimens documenting the geographical distributions of all the known species. His colleague Dr. William D'Arcy is now leading a small group of specialists, soon to be joined by a postdoctoral associate specializing on these plants, to finish the taxonomic revisionary work that was underway during Gentry's lifetime. Work to be done includes computer databasing of the several thousands of species identifications completed by Dr. Gentry, for specimens from the American tropics, which in turn provides the foundation for all regional plant inventories. Identification keys, illustrations of detailed botanical parts, descriptions for new species, and comprehensive taxonomic treatments for several neotropical genera are also scheduled, as core activities for a newly trained specialist on the Bignoniaceae.