Determinación taxonómica de los Urapanes (Fraxinus sp.) en el arbolado urbano de Bogotá

Abstract

The Urapán (Fraxinus, Oleaceae) is one of the most abundant trees in the savannah of Bogotá, and since the consolidation of urban woodland in 1948, a confusion has predominated regarding the taxonomic determination of these specimens, where the classification of these individuals between the species: Fraxinus chinensis, from East Asia, and Fraxinus uhdei from North and Central America is disputed. This research seeks to clarify which of the two previous species mentioned belong to the Urapanes planted in Bogotá. This study was based on an analysis of continuous morphological characteristics, which took into account: Apical leaflet length, apical leaflet width, number of veins, samara length, samara width, seed length and finally, peduncle length. Urapanes collections of urban woodland were carried out, as well as the specimens of international herbariums were checked, where digital measurements were made of specimens identified as F. uhdei and F. chinensis, collected in regions where they are native. Measurements obtained from individuals were subjected to a multivariate statistical analysis by applying a discriminatory function analysis using the LDA function of the R software. The results obtained for the data set with the highest number of characters suggest that the samples collected in Bogota are related to the species Fraxinus uhdei with a probability of allocating more than 80% for each of them.