Format: ORAL

Dawson M. White

Harvard University Herbaria, Cambridge, USA

Coca represents one of the most culturally significant and oldest crops in the Americas. As the natural source of cocaine, coca is also internationally proscribed under various applications of taxonomy and/or biochemical data. However, recent phylogenetic and phylogeographic studies of the coca crops and closest wild relatives have revealed a complex evolutionary blueprint substantiating taxonomic revisions. The widespread wild species Erythroxylum gracilipes is a paraphyletic taxon containing two or three clades of coca taxa (E. coca and E. novogranatense; each with two varieties) plus the wild species E. cataractarum. Additionally, genetic and morphological studies indicate intraspecific hybrids are being cultivated for the illicit cocaine market. This presentation will provide an overview of the recent genetic and morphological research on the coca clade and discuss various taxonomic proposals that could be more informative of this evolutionary history.