''Manilkara spectabilis'' is an uncommon species of
tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...
in the
sapodilla family.
In 1997, the
IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...
were mistakenly under the impression that a specimen in the US, collected in 1899 from a site near
Limón
Limón (), commonly known as Puerto Limón, is a district, the capital city and main hub of Limón province, as well as of the Limón canton in Costa Rica. It is the seventh largest city in Costa Rica, with a population of over 55,000, and is ho ...
in the Atlantic coastal forests of
Costa Rica
Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...
was the only specimen that had ever been collected for of the species, and therefore assumed it might be an
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
to this location. Based on this supposition, the species was provisionally declared '
critically endangered'.
It had in fact been collected in Nicaragua in 1951 already, and after being declared 'critically endangered' it was soon found elsewhere in eastern coastal Costa Rica by local researchers.
References
spectabilis
Plants described in 1912
Critically endangered plants
Trees of Costa Rica
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot
{{Sapotaceae-stub