Michael H. Grayum
This article reconstructs the personal and scientific career of Paul Carpenter Standley (1884–1963), one of the most influential botanists in the study of Mesoamerican flora and a foundational figure in Costa Rican botany. Drawing on biographical sources, publications, and colleagues’ testimonies, it reviews his education, his career at the Smithsonian Institution and the Field Museum of Natural History, his field expeditions, and the traits that shaped his personality and working methods. The article highlights his extraordinary productivity as a plant collector and taxonomist: he gathered more than 130 000 specimens, published approximately 500 works, and participated in the description of more than 3 500 new taxa, including 70 genera. In Costa Rica, he conducted fieldwork during 1924 and 1925–1926, collected nearly 15 000 specimens, and later published, between 1937 and 1938, the first comprehensive study of the country’s vascular flora. Although his work had some limitations resulting from the speed at which he worked and the limited representation of his collections in the national herbarium, his scientific contribution was exceptional. The article concludes that Standley’s legacy remains essential to the knowledge, research, and conservation of the floristic diversity of Costa Rica and Mesoamerica.