The genus Prunus has a worldwide distribution and contains several important food crops (including Cherries, Almonds, and Plums), ornametal species (Blossom Cherries), timber souces (e.g. Black Cherry) and medicinal Plants (e.g. African Cherry). There are thought to be about 450 valid species in the genus, but the situation is complicated with about 1230 species described within the genus, and over 2000 more in other genera that have since been synonymised with it (i.e. genera which have had all their putative members moved into Prunus.
Historically, it has been thought that the majority of Prunus species are found in the northern temperate belt, with a smaller number of species found at high altitudes in tropical and subtropical zones. However, recent research has discovered that the genus is much more widespread in lowland tropical forests than previously realised, particularly in the Americas, raising the possibility that the genus is more diverse in these regions than in the temperate zone.
In a paper published in the journal PhytoKeys on 4 April 2025, Álvaro Pérez of the Herbario QCA at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Jorge Andrés Pérez-Zabala of the Herbario Gabriel Gutiérrez Villegas at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Katya Romoleroux, also of the Herbario QCA at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, David Espinel-Ortiz, again of the Herbario QCA at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, and of the Bonn Institute of Organismic Biodiversity at the University of Bonn, and Chaquira Romoleroux and Natasha Albán-Vallejo, once again of the Herbario QCA at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, describe a new species of Prunus from southwestern Ecuador.
The new species is described from a small population of trees discovered in a cloud forest remnant in the Sambotambo Birón area of the Jocotoco Foundation-managed Reserve Buenaventura in El Oro Province, on the western flank of the Andes, between 1300 and 1400 m above sealevel. The new species is named Prunus luxurians, in reference to its 'profuse blooming and outstanding beauty', which makes it a conspicuous part of the lower and mid-strata of the forest.
Prunus luxurians forms trees up to 11 m high, with grooved dark brown bark with lighter lenticles (raised pores). Leaves are oblong-to-lance-shaped, waxy, and grow on alternating sides of leaf stems, they are 10–13.65 cm long and 3.5–4.65 cm wide. Flowers are white with light green centres, and born on floriferous shoots, which can have 14–27 individual flowers, clusetered together in groups of 3-4.
Only five living trees were found, in a fragment of montane evergreen forest, with high levels of bith diversity and endemism. The remaining forest fragments in this region are considered to be threatened by mining and farming activities, for which reason Pérez et al. recomend that Prunus luxurians be classified as Critically Endangered under the terms of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species.
See also...
.jpg)
