Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica 197 
Santa Clara still formed a “dense stand of huge trees . . . stretching far northward al- 
most to the Pacific coast” (Standley, 1937b: 13). Today, except for Tortuguero National 
Park, all that remains are small patches of much intervened forest. As a result, the floris- 
tic landscape before us now is very different from that seen by Standley in the 1920s. 
For Standley, the most “modified” vegetation was that of the Central Valley and other 
coffee country of the Pacific slope, in his “tierra templada” zone (see below). Much of 
this rich agricultural land, with deep, loamy volcanic soils, was certainly cleared by in- 
digenous people, prior to the arrival of the Spanish. Nowadays, that deforestation seems 
so long ago that we hardly think of it. The Pacific lowlands south and somewhat west 
of San José (including the Fila Costefia), hardly known at all botanically during Stan- 
dley’s time, must have been cut over (as most of it is now) during the intervening pe- 
riod. What we witness today is the steady deforestation of the Osa Peninsula forest re- 
serves and, basically, all of the other forest reserve areas that buffer the national parks. 
The present discussion, aimed mostly at a simple demonstration of our current state 
of knowledge compared to that revealed by Standley’s work, must be weighed against 
the stark reality of immense and continuing deforestation. The species counts given 
below, although based on the real data of specimens, are bound to change, not only be- 
cause we continue to explore and to discover novelties, but also because the Costa 
Rican landscape is changing. 
Although numerous more rigorous and more detailed divisions of Costa Rica into 
phytogeographical or climatological regions (see beginning of this chapter) have since 
been published, the division into four (Caribbean tierra caliente, Pacific tierra caliente, 
tierra templada, and tierra fria), followed by Standley (1937b) and earlier authors, is 
the simplest and easiest to use for comparison and analysis (see also Leon & Poveda A., 
2000). Standley’s preference for the elevational ranges designated by Wercklé (1909), 
rather than those of Pittier (1908), is followed here: tierra caliente = O—800 m, tierra 
templada = 800-1500 m, tierra fria = 1500 m and above. The vegetation differs among 
these areas basically because, in Costa Rica, the Caribbean slope is less seasonal and 
generally wetter than the Pacific slope and rainfall (or the effectiveness of available 
moisture) increases with elevation. Also, it is known that an abrupt temperature and 
vegetational change occurs on the Pacific slope between 700 and 900 m (see Burger, 
1995). Specific details of temperature and rainfall are discussed in the section Climate 
and weather of the chapter on The physical environment, where it can be seen that these 
four areas are by no means homogeneous. We have learned that, even within relatively 
small patches of forest, such as those of La Selva Biological Station and Carara Na- 
tional Park, heterogeneity is the rule. Nuances of slope, soil type, proximity to flood 
plains and streams, and recent history of human-caused or natural events create often 
very localized patchiness in vegetation composition. 
We will make no attempt to improve or even equal Standley’s amicable travelogue 
of these areas; most of his observations are still valid, and even most of the scientific 
names he mentions are still accepted here. Our goal is simply to characterize and com- 
