Guide to Tendrillate Climbers of Costa Rican Mountains

Climbers, such as lianas and vines, are important constituents oftropical forests and perhaps the single most important physiognomiccharacteristic differentiating tropical from temperate forests,occurring on nearly 50% of forest trees in Central and SouthAmerica. Despite their widespread nutritional and medicinal use,lianas remain poorly understood ecologically.
Tendrillate Climbers offers comprehensive coverage of allof the tendrillate lianas of Costa Rica and most of the tendrillatelianas of Central America. This unique reference provides
* Excellent keys to families and separate keys to genera andspecies
* State-of-the-art nomenclature and lists of synonymy when otherscientific names have been published or used informally
* Each species illustrated by the author's hand-drawn lineart
An invaluable addition to our understanding of tropical forests,the book offers new information as well as information broughttogether from dispersed publications and unpublished lists andreports. In these times of habitat fragmentation and species loss,this data is a significant contribution to the biological researchthat is thriving in Central America, especially Costa Rica.
Tendrillate Climbers fills a major gap in the botanicalliterature. Its high level of scholarship and comprehensivecoverage will astonish the tropical botanists, forestry scientists,ecologists, biologists, and horticulturalists who will want it as areference for their continued work on this neglected group ofplants.