A complete inventory of the estimated 17,000 species of ferns, conifers, and flowering plants of the Middle American tropics is the goal of an ambitious multi-investigator, multi- national program of research coordinated at the Missouri Botanical Garden, under Dr. Gerrit Davidse. Flora Mesoamericana, in the form of a traditional published series of books and as a parallel computerized data base, is a synoptic inventory of the vascular plants that provides descriptions of basic plant features, a comprehensive identification guide, a summary of geographical ranges for each species, and a standardized synthesis of the taxonomy of all the plants. Mesoamerica includes Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, plus the Mexican states of Chiapas, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Yucatan, and Tabasco. Taxonomic work is being contributed by staff members of the Missouri Botanical Garden, the National University in Mexico City, and the British Museum of Natural History. Cooperative planning and participation of Mesoamerican botanists are major features of the project. The flora volumes are being published in Spanish in Mexico through the National University; the computer databases initially are being developed in St. Louis and in London, and will be extended to the Mexico City station. The first published volumes will treat the monocots (grasses, sedges, lilies, and relatives) and the ferns; subsequent volumes will treat the dicots and the gymnosperms. There is no comparable inventory of the rich plant resources of this vast region, portions of which are changing rapidly through human disturbance and development.
