Revised nomenclature of compound leaves as an aid in field identification of tropical trees and other woody plants

After offering Tropical Dendrology courses for the last seventeen years in Costa Rica, the author has detected deficiencies in the botanical terminology related to compound leaves of tropical woody plants. He suggests several new terms and new leaf classification categories. Four basic compound leaf categories are proposed, for which diagrams are presented, namely: monofoliolate, bifoliolate, palmate, and pinnate. The palmate-compound leaf category is classified as monopalmate, trifoliolate-monopalmate, bipalmate, trifoliolate-bipalmate, tripalmate, and trifoliolate-tripalmate. Cor-respondingly the pinnate-compound leaf category is classified as monopinnate, bipinnate, and tripinnate. The monopin-nate-compound leaf category is further classified as parimonopinnate, imparimonopinnate, and trifoliolate-monopinnate. The bipinnate-compound leaf category is further classified as paribipinnate, and imparibipinnate. Also, the terms foliole versus pinnae, and foliate versus foliolate are discussed. The term ternate is considered as synonymous of palmate with three folioles. Other uncommon compound leaf categories are described, namely: bipalmate, distally monopinnate and tripinnate, distally bipinnate.