Lodoicea, commonly known as the sea coconut, coco de mer, or double coconut, is a monotypic genus in the palm family. The sole species, Lodoicea maldivica, is endemic to the islands of Praslin and Curieuse in the Seychelles. It has the biggest seed in a plant. It formerly also was found on the small islets of St Pierre, Chauve-Souris, and Ile Ronde, all located near Praslin, but had become extinct there for a time until recently reintroduced.
Mora is a genus of large trees in the subfamily Caesalpinioideae of the legume family Fabaceae,.
Enterolobium cyclocarpum, commonly known as conacaste, guanacaste, caro caro, devil's ear tree, monkey-ear tree, or elephant-ear tree, is a species of flowering tree in the family Fabaceae, that is native to tropical regions of the Americas, from central Mexico south to northern Brazil (Roraima) and Venezuela. It is known for its large proportions, expansive, often spherical crown, and curiously shaped seedpods. The abundance of this tree, especially in Guanacaste Province, Costa Rica, where it is prized for the shady relief it provides from the intense sun, coupled with its immensity, have made it a widely recognized species. It is the national tree of Costa Rica.
The Baird's tapir, also known as the Central American tapir, is a species of tapir native to Mexico, Central America, and northwestern South America. It is the largest of the three species of tapir native to the Americas, as well as the largest native land mammal in both Central and South America.
Daniel Hunt Janzen is an American evolutionary ecologist, and conservationist. He divides his time between his professorship in biology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is the DiMaura Professor of Conservation Biology, and his research and field work in Costa Rica.
Astrocaryum alatum is a species of palm with edible nuts, a flowering plant in the family Arecaceae. It is a common species found many types of rainforests and swamps in Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama.
Fraxinus profunda, the pumpkin ash, is a species of ash (Fraxinus) native to eastern North America, where it has a scattered distribution on the Atlantic coastal plain and interior lowland river valleys from the Lake Erie basin in Ontario and New York west to Illinois, southwest to Missouri and southeast to northern Florida. It grows in bottomland habitats, such as swamps, floodplains and riverbanks. It is threatened by the emerald ash borer, an invasive insect which has caused widespread destruction of ash trees in eastern North America.
Salvin's spiny pocket mouse is a small to medium-sized rodent in the family Heteromyidae. It was formerly placed in the genus Liomys, which is now recognized to be paraphyletic and has been subsumed into Heteromys.
Zamia roezlii is a species of cycad, a palm-like pachycaulous plant in the family Zamiaceae. It is found in Colombia and the Pacific coast of Ecuador. It is named for the Czech botanist Benedikt Roezl. A single sperm cell from Zamia roezlii is about 0.4 mm in length and is visible to the unaided eye, being the world's largest plant sperm cell. Drosophila bifurca, a species of fruit fly, has sperm that are 5.8 cm long, albeit mostly coiled tail. The tree is up to 22 feet in height with fronds up to ten feet long bearing leaflets up to twenty inches long and six inches wide.>
Alfaroa manningii, or gavilán colorado, is a valued lumber tree of the Walnut family endemic to the premontane Costa Rican rain forest. The specific epithet honors the American botanist Wayne Eyer Manning (1899–2004).
Prosopis strombulifera is a species of mesquite or algarrobo, a shrub in the legume family. It is known by the English common names Argentine screwbean and creeping screwbean and the Spanish common name retortuño. This shrub is native to Argentina, where it grows in arid and saline soils. It became well known in California after it was introduced to Imperial County and took hold in the wild, growing as an invasive noxious weed. The plant grows from a network of long, spreading roots and may grow to three meters in height. Many plants may grow together in an area, forming a monotypic stand. The shrub has waxy-textured leaves made up of a pair of leaflets which are each divided into several pairs of secondary leaflets each up to a centimeter long. Whitish spines up to 2 cm long appear near the leaf bases. The inflorescence is a spherical head of many very narrow tubelike yellow flowers, the head measuring about 1.5 cm wide. The fruit is a bright yellow seed pod coiled tightly into a cylindrical stick up to 5 cm long. It contains several greenish seeds, each about 0.5 cm long.
Pentaclethra macroloba is a large and common leguminous tree in the genus Pentaclethra native to the wet tropical areas of the northern Neotropics, which can form monocultural stands in some seasonally flooded habitats. It has giant, bipinnate leaves shaped like feathers. It uses seed dispersal by water to establish itself in new areas, having floating seeds that are left behind after the waters recede after floods or tides. It has hard timber which is not very resistant to rot in the tropics, but it can be treated, has a pretty pink-red colour when dry, and has a number of uses. Oil used in cosmetics is extracted from the large seeds. In the northern Amazon region the bark is used in herbal medicine as an antivenom, and in the Guianas the bark has been used as a fish poison. Despite their toxicity, the seeds are eaten by variegated squirrels, parrots and macaws, and serve as the nurseries of the larvae of the moth Carmenta surinamensis.
Winifred Hallwachs is an American tropical ecologist who helped to establish and expand northwestern Costa Rica's Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG). The work of Hallwachs and her husband Daniel Janzen at ACG is considered an exemplar of inclusive conservation.
Chisocheton lasiocarpus is a species of tree in the genus Chisocheton of the Mahogany Family (Meliaceae). It is a sparsely branched, slightly buttressed, somewhat stout mesocaul or rather slender pachycaul tree of the western New Guinea rainforest rising to 110 feet in height, and possibly the only such tree with a weeping habit, the huge terminal rosettes of five foot long pinnate leaves of the lower branches facing down toward the earth. Like all Chisochetons, C. lasiocarpus has indeterminate leaves with a tiny circinate bud at the tip of each leaf which produces a new pair of leaflets every few weeks or months over a period of several years, each leaf eventually reaching five feet in length. There are 9 to 11 pairs of leaflets at a time. Each leaflet can be up to 18 inches long by up to nine inches in width. The flowers are white or pink, tubular, about a half inch long with 4 or 5 petals and 7 or 8 stamens. The tree is "myrmecophilous". C. lasiocarpus is a highly variable species.
Chisocheton macrophyllus in the Mahogany family (Meliaceae) is a pachycaul rainforest tree of the East Indies and Malay Peninsula with very few upright limbs (reiterations) ultimately reaching a height of 115 feet. Each reiteration is topped by a tight rosette of once-pinnate leaves up to ten feet in length with up to 28 pairs of leaflets at any given time, each up to 15.5 inches long by 4.5 inches in width. Like all Chisocheton species, these leaves are indeterminate, forming a new pair of leaflets every few weeks or months. while the oldest pair may die. The cream colored flowers, 1.5 inches long with 4 or 5 petals, are arranged in a thyrse up to 32 inches long, followed by pyriform capsules up to six inches in diameter with 2 to 4 seeds each the size and shape of a brazilnut.
Chisocheton polyandrus, of the Mahogany Family (Meliaceae), is a species of pachycaulous, unbranched trees variously called "palmoids", "maypole trees" or "Corner Model Trees" occurring among several families of unrelated trees. C. polyandrus is native to Borneo, and grows up to a height of 49 feet in height, and may have small buttress roots or even prop roots. It is topped by a tight circle of indeterminate, once-pinnate leaves up to 5.5 feet in length, which may eventually have up to fourteen pairs of leaflets, acquired one pair at a time over a period of several months or years, each leaflet measuring up to 17 inches long by 5.5 inches in width. In mature leaves the oldest pair may die when a new pair is formed. The unbranched inflorescences are up to 6.5 feet long with the flowers occupying just the last foot (30 cm) or so, eventually hanging straight down as the weight of the fruit increases. The flowers are tubular, 1 to 1.25 inches in length. Petals 5 or 6, white with red blush and having up to 14 stamens. The fruit has three seeds, each covered with a red aril.
Inga oerstediana is a species of tree in the family Fabaceae. It was described by English botanist George Bentham. It can be found in Mexico, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and Trinidad and Tobago.
Pentagonia gomez-loritoi is a "palmoid" or "Corner Model Tree" of the Costa Rican and Panamanian rainforest belonging to the family Rubiaceae. It is usually single-trunked up to 19.5 feet in height. It is most noteworthy for its pairs of huge, entire margined, shiny oblanceolate leaves; each leaf up to 4 ft.7in. in length by up to 22 inches in width. petiole very short or none. The pairs of leaves are spaced several inches apart along the stem. This species was totally unknown prior to 2014.
