WHAT IS NOT ALWAYS TOLD ABOUT TROPICAL BOTANY

Robin Foster, Manu, Barro Colorado, and the Field Memory of Percy Núñez Vargas

The history of tropical botany is not written only in scientific articles, herbaria, and universities. It is also written in the humid camps of the Amazon, in bundles of pressed plants, in endless walks along trails opened among roots, lianas, and giant trees, and in the memory of those who dedicated their lives to recognizing, collecting, comparing, and preserving botanical evidence.

This text emerges as a testimony by M. Percy Núñez Vargas, a Peruvian researcher linked to tropical botany, Amazonian forest inventories, and the scientific history of Manu, Tambopata-Candamo, and other areas of high biological diversity in Peru. Its intention is not to deny the contribution of international researchers such as Robin B. Foster, John W. Terborgh, Alwyn H. Gentry, Thomas Croat, Peter H. Raven, John Wurdack, Ghillean T. Prance, Nigel Pitman, and many others. On the contrary, it seeks to remember that behind every great tropical research effort there was a network of collectors, assistants, Peruvian botanists, park rangers, students, determiners, and specialists who made current knowledge possible.

Tropical science is a collective work. However, not all names always appear with the same strength in the official history.

Barro Colorado Island: Panama’s Forest Laboratory

Barro Colorado Island, in Panama, is one of the most important sites in the world for the study of tropical forests. There, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute promoted one of the most influential forest experiments of the twentieth century: a 50-hectare permanent plot where trees were measured, mapped, and identified in order to study the dynamics of tropical forests.

The available literature indicates that the 50-hectare plot on Barro Colorado was initially demarcated and censused in 1982. In that process, more than 200,000 woody individuals were measured and mapped, and the taxonomic component was especially demanding: each individual had to be associated with a species or previously recognized taxon, using floristic works such as Thomas Croat’s 1978 flora of Barro Colorado as a reference.

This effort was not only statistical. It was profoundly botanical. Without reliable identification, a forest plot becomes nothing more than a sum of numbered trunks. Taxonomy gives each tree a name, a history, and ecological meaning.

Robin B. Foster stood out precisely in this regard: he insisted that the ecology of tropical communities required rigorous botanical identifications. His work on Barro Colorado was recognized by the international scientific community, and years later he would be named an honorary member of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation.

But the case of Barro Colorado also teaches a broader lesson: great tropical plots are not born only from brilliant ideas. They require logistics, collection, comparison of specimens, herbarium vouchers, determinations, revisions, databases, and persistent work over many years.

From the Plot to the Plant: The Importance of Vouchers

A forest inventory cannot be sustained solely through visual observations. To confirm the identity of many tropical species, botanical samples are needed: fertile branches, flowers, fruits, leaves, bark, photographs, and field notes.

These specimens, known as vouchers or reference specimens, allow other specialists to review the identification years later. A sample collected in the field can be studied by taxonomists specializing in Lauraceae, Fabaceae, Melastomataceae, Annonaceae, Rubiaceae, or any other complex family.

In tropical forests, where many species resemble one another and where much of the diversity is still poorly studied, vouchers are indispensable. Without them, names may change, errors may be repeated, and new species may remain hidden for decades.

Percy Núñez Vargas remembers this problem from direct experience: thousands of collections, duplicates, bundles of pressed plants, labels, determinations, annotations, and specialists consulted. Each sample involved enormous logistics. Collecting in the Amazon is not simply cutting a branch; it means finding it, climbing the tree if necessary, pressing it, drying it, labeling it, protecting it from humidity, distributing duplicates, and waiting for specialists to review it.

Manu: A Living School of Tropical Science

Manu National Park and the Cocha Cashu Biological Station occupy a fundamental place in the history of tropical ecology. Since the 1970s, Manu attracted researchers dedicated to studying birds, mammals, primates, trees, lianas, palms, ecological interactions, and forest dynamics.

According to later catalogues and publications, researchers such as John W. Terborgh and Robin B. Foster arrived in the area in 1973, linked to the first botanical and ecological work at Cocha Cashu. Other specialists would later join them, including Alwyn H. Gentry, whose ability to recognize tropical plants in the field became legendary.

Percy Núñez Vargas remembers that period as an intense stage of learning, collaboration, and also tensions. Foreign researchers contributed academic networks, contacts, funding, publications, and specialists. Peruvian researchers and field assistants contributed territorial knowledge, physical endurance, logistics, collection, follow-up, and local continuity.

Both dimensions were necessary. But scientific memory must prevent one from hiding the other.

The Foster Case: Recognition, Silence, and Collective Work

Robin Foster is recognized as a botanist and ecologist of tropical forests. His career includes work on Barro Colorado, Manu, permanent plots, the identification of tropical plants, botanical photography, and projects connected to the Field Museum.

His name is associated with visual tools for plant identification and with species named in his honor, such as Miconia fosteri and Caryodaphnopsis fosteri. These epithets show that his contribution was recognized by taxonomic specialists.

However, Percy Núñez Vargas’s testimony raises an important question: how much of the history of tropical botany was told from the perspective of major authors, and how much remained in the memory of those who sustained the fieldwork?

That question should not be posed as a personal attack. It should be posed as a historical reflection. Twentieth-century tropical science was built within an unequal context: foreign universities with resources, international herbaria with specialists, field stations in megadiverse countries, and local teams that often did not receive the same visibility.

For this reason, reviewing the history of Robin Foster, John Terborgh, Alwyn Gentry, and Percy Núñez Vargas does not mean setting names against one another. It means reconstructing a network.

Identification Errors and Science as a Process

The original testimony mentions possible botanical confusions: Styloceras confused with Nealchornea, Minquartia with Coussapoa, Ruprechtia with Lecythidaceae, and other cases that should be reviewed in herbaria and original labels.

This point must be treated with caution. The identification of tropical plants is difficult even for experts. Many species are sterile at the time of collection; others lack flowers or fruits; some families present very similar characters. In the field, a preliminary identification may change after review by a specialist.

For this reason, a field error does not necessarily invalidate a scientific career. But it does demonstrate why vouchers, duplicates, and herbarium annotations are indispensable.

Taxonomy is a science that can be corrected. A name written on a label may be revised decades later. A mysterious plant may remain without a clear family for years and later be described as a new species. A forgotten collection may become central evidence for understanding the flora of a territory.

New Plants, New Records, and Dedicated Names

Percy Núñez Vargas mentions botanical records and names that deserve special documentary review, including Phyllonoma weberbaueri, Ormosia coarctata, Simaba paraensis, Miconia fosteri, Caryodaphnopsis fosteri, and Inga fosteriana.

Some of these names exist in botanical catalogues or tools, but each case must be carefully verified: locality, collector, collection number, herbarium, determiner, original publication, and current taxonomic status.

In botany, a name may be accepted, may be a synonym, may have been misapplied, or may require revision. Therefore, the task is not merely to cite names, but to build a critical table supported by evidence.

A future investigation into the legacy of Percy Núñez Vargas should distinguish between:

Species collected by Percy Núñez Vargas.
Species determined by specialists using his samples.
Species new to Peru associated with his collections.
Species dedicated to Robin Foster or other researchers.
Doubtful records that require voucher review.
Material deposited in CUZ, USM, MO, US, F, NY, SEL, or other herbaria.

Only in this way can testimony be transformed into verifiable scientific history.

The Role of Alwyn H. Gentry

Percy Núñez Vargas’s testimony recognizes the diplomacy and vision of Alwyn H. Gentry. Gentry understood the potential of field botanists and knew how to integrate local collaborators into publications, expeditions, and projects.

His work in Neotropical forests marked a generation. He was recognized for his ability to identify plants rapidly in the field and for promoting floristic inventory methods that made it possible to compare the diversity of different tropical forests.

For Percy Núñez Vargas, Gentry represents a model of recognition: an international scientist capable of seeing the value of local collaborators and inviting them to participate as co-authors when their contribution was substantial.

That gesture may seem simple, but in the history of science it can be decisive. Co-authorship is not only a signature; it is a form of memory.

The Problem of 50,000 Collections

The testimony mentions tens of thousands of collections and a logistical burden almost impossible to sustain: massive bundles, duplicates, determinations, transport, drying, specialists, herbaria, and funding.

This point is central. Tropical botany generates an enormous amount of material. A single project can produce thousands of samples. Each sample requires space, time, people, and follow-up.

When herbaria do not have sufficient resources, collections may take years to process. Some remain unidentified. Others remain as morphospecies. Some are lost, damaged, or left invisible in non-digitized databases.

For this reason, Percy Núñez Vargas’s claim should also be understood as a claim for national scientific infrastructure. Peru possesses extraordinary biodiversity, but documenting it requires strong herbaria, digitized collections, trained specialists, funding, and institutional continuity.

What Still Needs to Be Investigated

This article does not close the history. It proposes an agenda.

First, a complete review is needed of Percy Núñez Vargas’s collections in Tropicos/Missouri Botanical Garden, the Field Museum, the Smithsonian, the New York Botanical Garden, the Vargas Herbarium CUZ, the Natural History Museum of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, and other herbaria.

Second, a database should be built with collection number, date, locality, family, genus, species, determiner, depository herbarium, and duplicates.

Third, sensitive or doubtful names should be reviewed, especially those associated with new records for Peru or little-known species.

Fourth, a complete bibliography should be prepared of publications in which Percy Núñez Vargas appears as author, co-author, cited collector, or acknowledged collaborator.

Fifth, his written testimony should be preserved as historical memory, but clearly separated from verifiable data.

Science needs both things: documents and memory. Without documents, testimony remains vulnerable. Without memory, documents lose their humanity.

A Critical Memory, Not an Accusation

The original title, “What Robin Foster Never Told,” expresses a personal and historical tension. But in order to turn it into a scientific and publishable text, it is advisable to reformulate it as a critical memory of what is often left outside the official narrative.

Robin Foster did leave important contributions. Barro Colorado, Manu, permanent plots, botanical photographs, and tropical plant identifications are part of his legacy. But that legacy should not be told as if it had been built by one person alone.

The complete history includes Percy Núñez Vargas, John Terborgh, Alwyn Gentry, Rafael Ferreyra, John Wurdack, Peter Raven, Ghillean Prance, Nigel Pitman, Robin Foster, Thomas Croat, park rangers, collectors, assistants, students, and herbarium specialists.

It also includes less visible people: those who carried plant presses, dried samples, climbed trees, prepared duplicates, walked trails, and cared for field stations.

Tropical science was, and continues to be, a collective work.

Preserving Scientific Justice

Tropical forests preserve species, but they also preserve histories. Every identified tree, every deposited voucher, and every censused plot contains a network of human labor.

Percy Núñez Vargas asks that this network be remembered with justice.

This is not about erasing Foster, Terborgh, or Gentry. It is about completing the narrative. It is about recognizing that international science in Peru was supported by Peruvian territories, Peruvian institutions, Peruvian researchers, and field knowledge accumulated over decades.

The botanical memory of Manu, Tambopata-Candamo, and Cocha Cashu deserves a serious dossier: with dates, collections, herbaria, specialists, publications, and testimonies.

Only then will it be possible to say clearly what each person contributed.

The history of science should not be a forest where only the tallest trees stand out. It should also reveal the roots.

Credits

Author: Percy Núñez Vargas
Researcher – Pachacútec Andean Forest

Collaboration: Mag. Armando Isaias Medrano Zuniga
Pachacútec Andean Forest – Hummingbird Observatory