Flora Mesoamericana

This volume continues the work of the groundbreaking Flora Mesoamericana, the first major regional flora ever written in Spanish.

The Flora Mesoamericana describes, for the first time, all the vascular plants growing in the five southernmost states of Mexico and all the Central American republics. Hundreds of botanists specializing in tropical taxonomy from around the world are collaborating on this extraordinarily important project.

This volume includes fifty-nine families with 243 genera and 1375 species of dicotyledons, of which 676 are endemic to the Mesoamericana region. Of this total number of species, 358 (26%) have been discovered, and for the first time scientifically named and described, since the beginning of the Flora Mesoamericana project in 1980. The largest families are Lauraceae (262 species), Annonaceae (170), and Cactaceae (106). The most diverse genera in Mesoamerica are Ocotea (96 species), Phoradendron (61), and Magnolia (53).
 

Carmen Ulloa Ulloa joined the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1993 and is a senior curator with the Missouri Botanical Garden. She obtained her Licenciado degree from the Catholic University in Quito, Ecuador and her PhD from Aarhus University in Denmark. She currently serves as vice president of Ecuador Academy of Sciences and as co-chair of the IUCN Ecuador Plant Specialist Group. She is a member of the Science Panel for the Amazon. Her research focuses on plants from the Andes mountains. She joined the Flora Mesoamericana project in 2009 as editor and currently project coordinator. 

Héctor M. Hernández is a senior botanist working at the Instituto de Biología, National Autonomous University of México. He has served as curator, head of the botany department, and director at the National Herbarium of México. His research interests have been focused on the systematics and biogeography of certain genera of Leguminosae, as well as the Mexican members of the cactus family. Over the last eight years, he has devoted a significant amount of his time and effort to participating in the Flora Mesoamericana, a collaborative project between his home institution, the Missouri Botanical Garden, and the Natural History Museum, London.

Fred R. Barrie is an associate curator at the Missouri Botanical Garden and adjunct curator at the Field Museum, Chicago. He is on the editorial committee of the International Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi and Plants. He has worked in the Flora Mesoamericana project since 1993 as contributing author and editor.
 

Gerrit Davidse, now retired as curator emeritus, has worked as a curator and research scientist at the Missouri Botanical Garden since 1972. During that time his research interests have focused on the grass family Poaceae, especially those of tropical America. Along with Mario Sousa, Instituto de Biología, Mexico City, and Arthur Chater, Natural History Museum, London, he was a founding member of the Flora Mesoamerica in 1980. In addition, he contributed various taxonomic treatments and worked as a coeditor of this project. Although his field work has focused primarily on the American tropics, he has also participated in exploratory expeditions in South America, Africa, and Sri Lanka.