Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica 
plants (Leén & Poveda Ae 2000). Rodriguez 
became a distinguished professor at the Univer- 
sidad de Costa Rica (UCR), where he played 
pivotal roles in establishment of the Revista de 
Biologia Tropical, in 1953, and the creation of 
the Department of Biology, in 1956 (Burlin- 
game, 2002; Morales, 2003). Rodriguez is also 
fondly recalled for his teaching and painting; 
his beautiful, technically detailed watercolors, 
mainly of orchids, are showcased in Rodriguez 
et al. (1986). Alfonso Jiménez (b. 1921) under- 
took the reorganization and modernization 
of the Museo Nacional, and made important 
collections throughout the country. During 
1956-1957, German botanist Hans Weber 
(b. 1911) conducted pioneering field investi- 
gations on the highest Costa Rican summits, 
leading to his landmark paper on the country’s 
paramos (Weber, 1958, 1959). German plant 
Rafael Lucas Rodriguez (1915-1981) 
Courtesy Hunt Institute of Botanical 
Documentation 
enthusiast Clarence KI. Horich (1930—1994) came to Costa Rica in 1957 and re- 
mained until his death, collecting horticultural subjects in all parts of the country 
(Honig, 1994). His wealth of knowledge, mainly on cacti and orchids, was never fully 
tapped. On the other hand, American Paul Hamilton Allen (1911-1963), a former 
student of the Missouri Botanical Garden, left an indelible legacy with his classic 
The rain forests of Golfo Dulce (1956), the 
product of five years of residency in Palmar 
Sur. Robert G. Wilson (1911-1989), an Amer- 
ican horticulturist, settled in 1958 on land that 
he would transform into Las Cruces Botanical 
Garden (later Jardin Botanico Robert y Cather- 
ine Wilson), a center for both horticultural and 
botanical research. American dendrologist El- 
bert L. Little Jr. published a preliminary key to 
110 families of Costa Rican trees (Little, 1965). 
A collaboration by Smithsonian botanist Fran- 
cis R. Fosberg (1908-1993) and collector 
W. L. Klawe yielded the most recent and most 
comprehensive checklist of the Cocos Island 
vascular flora (Fosberg & Klawe, 1966). UCR 
botanist Luis A. Fournier (1935—2002; see 
Bermtdez M., 2002, and Morales, 2002b), best 
Paul Hamilton Allen (1911-1963) 
Courtesy Luis Diego Gomez 
