Gramneas de Zacatecas, Mexico

From Plant Press, vol. 13, No. 3 from July 2010.

Paul Peterson and fellow scientists Yolanda Herrera Arrieta and Armando Cortés Ortiz have produced a taxonomic treatment of the grasses from the Mexican state of Zacatecas. Published in Sida, Botanical Miscellany, this treatment includes 284 species in 91 genera with six subspecies, 30 varieties, and four forms. Written entirely in Spanish, this publication contains keys for determining the taxa, descriptions, illustrations (at least one per genus), distribution maps, and specimens examined. Zacatecas is centrally placed in México (bisected by the Tropic of Cancer) located primarily east of the Sierra Madre Occidental and west of the Sierra Madre Oriental with nearly 75% of the state between 6000−8000 feet in elevation (10,501 ft on the tallest mountain).

In 1546, the Basque, Juan de Tolosa, made a major strike of silver in Zacatecas in the rough, arid mountains deep in Chichimec territory. Ciudad Zacatecas still harbors Mina El Edén, an active silver mine on top of Cerro del Grillo. Today much of the high plateau between the two Sierras is covered with C₄ grasslands that include xerophilous shrubs, pinyon−juniper, and oak woodlands.

This important study, supported by CONABIO (Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad) and the Smithsonian, will be used by land managers, ranchers, ecologists, scientists, and plant enthusiasts who need to identify grasses throughout Zacatecas and surrounding states. Peterson will be traveling with Jeffery Saarela (Canadian Museum of Nature and former Smithsonian Research Training Intern) this fall, and together, with Herrera Arrieta and Cortés Ortiz, they will begin working on a grass flora of San Luis Potosí.