Dora Emilia Mora de Retana employer University of Costa Rica
Career
In 1969 Mora became the Chair of Fundamentals of Biology at the University of Costa Rica (UCR) and then in 1973 assumed the Chair for General Biology. In 1978, she was promoted to Chair of General Botany, and the following year was named as the first director of the Lankester Botanical Garden. Under her direction, the private orchid farm was transformed into a botanical garden and research facility. She developed the first infrastructure of the garden and coordinated its landscape development, inviting scientists to conduct research activities. She is widely credited with bringing the facility to international acclaim.In 1984, Mora collaborated with Robert Louis Dressler to prepare the first course on orchidology at UCR. In 1992, she published with Joaquín Bernardo García-Castro Lista actualizada de las orquídeas de Costa Rica (Updated list of Costa Rican orchids), the first catalogue of Costa Rican orchids printed since 1937. Their work included identification of forty-six new genera and four hundred sixty-seven new species identified since Paul Standley had published Flora of Costa Rica. The meticulous work became a consultative text for all researchers wanting to study the family Orchidaceae in Costa Rica for the next decade. In 1989, her work with other scientists led to the inclusion of 300 illustrations of Costa Rican orchids, of which most samples were found in the Lankester Garden, in the series Icones Plantarum Tropicarum. She was a co-author of John T. Atwood's 1999 book Flora costaricensis on the Maxillarieae tribe of orchids native to Costa Rica, which would be her most important legacy to orchid taxonomy.
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