There have been several attempts to record and describe the diversity of the Lauraceae in 
Latin America, particularly through local floras. For example, Standley (1922, 1946) studied the 
species in Mexico and Guatemala, Allen (1948) in Panama, Macbride (1938) in Peru, Bernardi 
(1962) in Venezuela, Kostermans (1939) in Chile, Roig & Acufia (1949) in Cuba, and Burger & 
van der Werff (1990) in Costa Rica. Other works have been made with a broader regional 
perspective, including that of Allen (1945), who surveyed the Mexican and Central American 
species, and the important one by Mez (1889) for all the Latin American species. 
Floristic studies, as they are surveys concerned with recognition (listing) and 
identification of taxa in a particular area, usually do not consider the whole range of variation 
recorded for the different taxa in order to delimit and subdivide them. Systematic revisions are 
the kind of studies that deal with classification questions of a given group. This kind of research 
work is concerned with all the available information about the biology of the group of species 
under study in order to define, as clear as possible, the natural limits of the taxa, where they 
occur, the variation of their characteristics, and the evolutionary relationships within the group 
and to other groups. 
There are now several examples of systematic revisions for genera of Lauraceae in Latin 
America: Kostermans (1936, 1937) for Licaria; (1937) for Endlicheria, Cryptocarya; (1938a) for 
Aiouea, Urbanodendron, Systemonodaphne, Mezilaurus; (1938b) for Beilschmiedia and Aniba; 
Kopp (1966) for Persea; Kubitzki & Renner (1982) for Aniba and Aiouea; Kurz (1983) for 
Licaria; van der Werff (1987a) for Mezilaurus; (1993) for Pleurothyrium; Rohwer (1988) for 
Dicypellium, Phyllostemonodaphne, Systemonodaphne and Urbanodendron, and (1993b) for 
Nectandra. 
