Venezuela and Colombia, Jan - Feb 2008

Participants: Victor Steinmann, Ricarda Riina, Yocupitzia Ramírez, and Manuel Portilheiro.

This trip was mostly dedicated to herbarium research in Venezuela and Colombia. However, we went out for a couple of short field trips and photographed several Euphorbia species in the nearby areas. While in Venezuela, we visited the Venezuelan National Herbarium (VEN) in Caracas and the herbarium of the Facultad de Agronomía of the Universidad Central de Venezuela (MY) in the city of Maracay.

In Bogotá we spent a week working at the Colombian National Herbarium (COL) and one day at the herbarium of the Universidad Distrital of Bogotá (UDBC). After our week in Bogota, Victor and Yocu left for México while Manuel and I went back to Venezuela for another week of herbarium research on the western part of the country. On our way to the Andes we had a chance to see several interesting Euphorbias such as E. laurifolia and E. meridensis (now a synonym of E. orbiculata). We visited the herbarium of the Universidad Nacional Experimental de los Llanos (PORT) in Guanare, and the herbarium of the Facultad de Ciencias Forestales of the Universidad de los Andes (MER) in Mérida. We are all very grateful to the curators and staff of these herbaria for their time and collaboration.