XVI International Botanical Congess

Identification guides are indispensable tools in the fight to conserve and manage our increasingly threatened tropical forests. Identifying seedlings in tropical forests requires the use of special identification guides because these young stages lack the flowers and fruits usually used to identify adult plants. The Illustrated Guide to Seedlings fouces on Barro Colorado Island (BCI), Panama, a biological reserve established in 1923. It includes illustrations of and keys to over 750 species in more than 100 plant families. By enabling the identification of young seedlings, the ASeedling Guide@ will promote new resesrach in forest ecology, management and biiodiversity inventory. The beautiful illustrations were drawn by Margaret Tebbs.