Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica 2 
Rica were made during brief stops on long sea voyages, usually on Cocos Island 
or in the Nicoya region. The British buccaneer William Dampier (1652-1715), 
best known for his Australian explorations, stopped at Cocos Island and Cabo Blanco 
in June and July (respectively) of 1684 aboard the pirated Batchelor’s Delight (Dam- 
pier, 1927), and may have garnered a few botanical specimens that yet survive. A Dam- 
pier collection from “Costa Rica” (herbarium unspecified) was cited by Porteéres (1954: 
238). More than a century later, in 1794 and/or 1795, the British physician and botanist 
Archibald Menzies (1754-1842) landed on Cocos Island during the voyage of the 
Discovery with Capt. Vancouver, where he collected at least a few plant specimens that 
are still extant (see Adams, 1992: 290; van der Werff, 2002: 442). Shortly thereafter, 
sometime during the summer or fall of 1797, Mexican botanist José Mariano Mociiio 
(1757-1820), traveling by land, visited the Nicoya Peninsula, and may have reached 
Cartago (Mc Vaugh, 1977). However, the botanical results of Mocifio’s Central Ameri- 
can expedition were disappointing, and the provenance of the specimens collected is 
often not indicated on the labels. 
In 1838, the British H.M.S. Sulphur, under the command of Sir Edward Belcher 
(1799-1877), stopped at Cocos Island, and in 1839 briefly reconnoitered the Gulf of 
Nicoya (including Isla San Lucas), but collectors George Barclay and Richard Hinds 
(1812-1847) found little to interest them at either locale: ““The vegetable productions 
of this island [Cocos] are more remarkable for their luxuriance, than either their rich- 
ness in variety or value in cultivation; a handsome flora, with but few peculiarities...” 
(Belcher, 1843: 187—188); “Our visits to the Gulfs of Nicoya and Fonseca were not 
productive, indeed the sameness of an unbroken but dreary and profitless forest was 
nowhere more forcibly felt” (Hinds, 1844: 62). 
The collecting junket of German botanist Emmanuel von Friedrichsthal (1809- 
1842) marked the advent of a much more productive, 65-year period in Costa Rican 
floristics, dominated by botanists from continental Europe. According to his collec- 
tions, Friedrichsthal botanized extensively in Costa Rica between 1839 and 1842, along 
the Rio San Juan and from Guanacaste to Cartago. In 1846 the Danish botanist Anders 
Oersted (1816—1872) entered the country at Puntarenas (Oersted, 1863) and remained 
for two years, amassing the first significant collection of Costa Rican plants. Oersted 
worked mainly in the central part of the country, but also collected in the Sarapiqui re- 
gion, along the Rio San Juan, and in northern Guanacaste (see especially Dodge, 1933). 
Following close on Oersted’s heels was the Polish horticultural collector Joseph von 
Warszewicz (1812-1866), better known for his later explorations in western Panama 
(Savage, 1970), who botanized in Costa Rica for four months in early 1848. Entering 
the country via the Rio Sarapiqui, von Warszewicz climbed both Volcan Irazt and Vol- 
can Turrialba, harvesting 30 crates of orchids and palm seeds for shipment to Europe 
(Heckadon-Moreno, 1998). He returned briefly in early 1850. The German travelers and 
scientists Moritz Wagner (1813-1887) and Carl von Scherzer (1821-1903), also en- 
tering by the Sarapiqui route, visited all the easily accessible parts of Costa Rica dur- 
T's very earliest botanical collections from territory currently belonging to Costa 
