ABSTRACT:

Costa Rica is a small Central American nation about the size of Denmark, with a remakable array of climatic regimes, and altitudes ranging from sea level to nearly four thousand meters. One can ascend from semidesert scrub forests on the Pacific slope, up through sodden cloud forests to pa'ramo (a kind of a high altitude chaparral) on the highest peaks, and down again on the Caribbean slope, through alders, elms and oaks, to humid lowlands and rain forests. The plants growing in this multifaceted domain are incredibly diverse, even by tropical standards. Costa Rica boasts nearly twenty-five percent more species of dicots, for example, than the lush tropical isle of Java, and nearly two and a half times as many species of dicot epiphytes (Burger, 1980) - this despite the fact that Java is two and a half times larger than Costa Rica and has yielded fifty percent more herbarium specimens per unit area (Prance., 1978).