Trees of Panama and Costa Rica - 9780691147109

"This is an impressive tour-de-force of tropical plant identification. The lively writing is accessible to nonspecialists, while the broad taxonomic coverage and authoritative species descriptions make this guide useful to professional botanists."---Brad Boyle, University of Arizona

"This book is exceptionally well organized and extremely user friendly, and the text is really good and succinct. The authors convey the excitement of learning tropical botany to successfully identify tree species, and the section on tree identification is exceptional---quite simply the best that I have ever read. This book fills a huge need and does so very well."---John Kricher, Wheaton College

This is the first field guide dedicated to the diverse tree species of Panama and Costa Rica. Featuring close to 500 tropical tree species, Trees of Panama and Costa Rica includes superb color photos, abundant color distribution maps, and concise descriptions of key characteristics, making this guide readily accessible to botanists, biologists, and casual nature lovers alike.

The invaluable introductory chapters discuss tree diversity in Central America and the basics of tree identification. Family and species accounts are treated alphabetically and describe family size, number of genera and species, floral characteristics, and relative abundance. Color distribution maps supplement the useful species descriptions, and facing-page photographic plates detail bark, leaf, flower, or fruit of the species featured. Helpful appendices contain a full glossary, a comprehensive guide to leaf forms, and a list of families not covered.