PROGRESS OF THE STUDY ON THE AVOCADO GENETIC RESOURCES: THE FINDINGS FROM THE MEXICAN GULF REGION

Explorations have been carried out in search for specimens of the genera Persea in the states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Puebla, Tabasco, Yucatan, Oaxaca and Chiapas. They have been collected genotypes of the Mexican race (Persea americana var. drymifolia), Guatemalan race (P. americana var. guatemalensis), West Indian race (P. americana var. americana), and hybrids among these races, in addition the species P. nubigena, P. donnell-smithii, P. borbonia, P. schiedeana, P. steyermarkii, P. vesticula, Beilschmiedia anay and other 3 kinds of Persea. They have been located two places where items of the Mexican race are growing under wild condition; Tula-Ocampo, Tamaulipas and Tantima, Veracruz, and for the case of the West lndian race a possible wild individual in Tantima, Veracruz. Of the Guatemalan race we have not found wild subjects, however, in Motozintla, Chiapas, we have collected a type of Persea of the subgenera Persea that grows wild in the low parts of the hillsides together with pines, that its fruit seems like a primitive type of the Guatemalan race, but its leaves are different and with so much brown pubescence even in the shoots, that we think that is a new species of Persea.