Tropical Plants of Costa Rica: A Guide to Native and Exotic Flora

Zona Tropical Publications

by Willow Zuchowski

Ranging from miniature epiphytic orchids to towering trees, and from mangrove forests lining coastal waterways to high-elevation cloud forests, Costa Rica's rich and varied flora dazzles visitors and botanists alike. Tropical Plants of Costa Rica, the first popular treatment to include plants from all regions of the country, is an indispensable guide to native and exotic species found in the neotropics. This book is beautifully illustrated with more than 540 full-color photographs taken in the field, each depicting an entire plant or a closer view of flowers, fruits, or seeds. Instructive pen-and-ink drawings of botanical details also accompany many of the accounts. The text clearly explains each plant's identifying characteristics and reveals fascinating facts about its natural history, chemical properties, economic importance, and medicinal and other uses. Sidebar features throughout the book highlight conservation, ethnobotany, and ecology; their topics include unusual applications for plants, distinct attributes of certain plant families, and plants of particular microhabitats. Tropical Plants of Costa Rica is a wonderful resource for naturalists, students, and researchers, as well as both experienced and first-time visitors to Costa Rica and the American tropics.

Genres: Field Guides

532 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Paul Norwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author set herself an impossible task to begin with, so I'm definitely giving her four stars here.
First of all, the first edition is better printed, but it's worth upgrading to the second edition because of a couple extra sections (Osa, especially), updated nomenclature, and a physically smaller book. The paper feels denser, though, so I'm not sure there's a significant weight saving. I was convinced that the new edition's paper would do poorly in the humidity but mine did fine.
The author herself says the arrangement is difficult. I've read the whole book and I still can't find anything in there. Some important groups are treated separately, but then they also have representatives "lost" in other sections. Everything is scattered everywhere which would be fine if this was a complete flora, but many common and representative plants are missing from the book so I often found myself thinking "for sure this tree is in here" and looking three times through almost the entire book. Say, aguacatillo is in there in a way, but I couldn't find it under avocado, or quetzal, or palta, oops! Forgot to look under aguacate. Also the sea almond for example, frustrated me a lot. I vaguely remembered it from Hawaii but couldn't find it at all in the book, even though it's locally common and important.
The photos are nice and the descriptions very readable. It's a good way to prepare for a trip, but not a field reference.