Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica 
known for his phytogeographic studies (e.g., 
Fournier O., 1969, 1994), produced an un- 
vouchered checklist accounting for 124 families 
and “over 670” genera of trees and shrubs in 
Costa Rica (Fournier O. et al., 1966), since up- 
dated to 192 families and 1041 genera (Gémez- 
Laurito & Fournier O., 1986); later, he co- 
authored a tree guide for the Central Valley 
(Fournier O. et al., 1985), with professors Euge- 
nia Flores (UCR) and Dora Ingrid Rivera of 
the Universidad Nacional Aut6noma, Heredia 
(UNA). Fournier students Gerardo Herrera 
(b. 1948), Pablo Sanchez-Vindas (b. 1957), and 
Gina Umainia would go on to have considerable 
impact upon contemporary botany and the Man- 
ual project. Fournier and then colleague Sergio 
Salas (now dedicated to homeopathy) were the 
early mentors of Luis J. Poveda (b. 1945), con- 
temporary dean of Costa Rican dendrologists. 
Pablo Sanchez-Vindas (b. 1957) 
Courtesy Pablo Sanchez-Vindas 
Also during this allegedly infertile period, two major enterprises were modestly 
launched that would mature slowly, but bear fruit far into the future. The first of these 
was initiated in the early 1950s, when American dendrologist Leslie R. Holdridge 
(1907-1999), who would later helm the Tropical Science Center (TSC) and achieve in- 
ternational fame for his revolutionary life-zone system (Holdridge, 1967), began to 
leave his mark on Costa Rican botany. In 1953, 
Holdridge purchased Finca La Selva, a then re- 
mote tract of pristine forest in the Caribbean 
lowlands, which soon began to attract plant col- 
lectors from afar. Perhaps the first of these was 
the American pteridologist Edith Scamman 
(1882-1967), who visited the site twice in the 
mid-1950s (see Tryon & Tryon, 1968). The Or- 
ganization for Tropical Studies (OTS), founded 
in 1963 with the involvement of Rafael Lucas 
Rodriguez (Burlingame, 2002), used La Selva 
as the base for a series of systematics-oriented 
courses during the mid-1960s (Stone, 1988): OTS 
65-4, Advanced Botany (Monocots), led by 
P. Barry Tomlinson (b. 1932) and Jess Idrobo 
(b. 1917); OTS 66-2, Biology of Tropical Epi- 
phytes, led by Calaway H. Dodson (b. 1928); 
Leslie R. Holdridge (1907-1999) 
Courtesy Isabel Jiménez Alfaro, 
Ot6én Jiménez archive 
