ROY
LENT
ROY LENT passed away from cancer on Friday - October 12, 2012 at his home in Escazu, Costa Rica. He would have been 81 years old on November 21, 1931.
He wrote that he was "born and raised on the US East coast and he was attracted to Costa Rica because of its flora. I moved down (over 45 years) to become a plant breeder and to collect botanical specimens after getting a couple of degrees in botany. However, over the years I have done so many other things, often not connected to plants."
FAMILY:
Roy is survived by his wife Margarita in Escazu (originally from Honduras whom he met there MANY years ago while working for the United Fruit company), his son Billy (also named Roy) who lives with his family in Heredia and his son Albert in Houston.
SENDING CONDOLENCES:
Margarita is not able to fully grasp what has happened so please direct any Condolence Messages or stories about Roy to his son Billy - THOUGH - Billy does not use email much and is quite busy taking care of everything he needs to right now so if you'd like to send him your condolences, e- him at Roy.Lent@gmail.com but please understand if he does not respond. Please only call him if you have something VERY crucial to share - 8-703-0689). Unfortunately I don't have an email address for his son Albert but perhaps you can leave a message here for him since he commented below.
HOW YOU CAN HONOR ROY'S MEMORY:
Roy was one of the few people in Costa Rica to sign up to donate his body to UCIMed for medical science (south of POPS Sabana. His son Billy asked me to mention that it brought so much EASE to the family as UCIMed stepped in and took care of everything - they didn't have to do a thing and there was no expense to the family.
(For more information on how to do that contact Ana Isabel Borbon - 2-549-4000 xt 1170 • BorbonMA@UCMed.com. Or maybe next week some of us can go down there and sign up as well??!! If you're interested, contact me-Vicki - LivingLifeInCostaRica@gmail.com)CO-FOUNDER OF THE PC CLUB
Roy and Sam Butler were Co-Founders of the PC Club of Costa Rica. In lieu of a eulogy Paula and Steve said they will ask for a Minute's Silence at the next meeting of the PC Club on Saturday October 27 for Roy who was the Founder and Past President of the Costa Rica PC Club.
(Roy at
La EcoVilla with Stephen Brooks, Jerry Bleak, Carol Marianne and Paula Friedman
looking at the various plants on a tour that Stephen was giving that
day)
BIG CONTRIBUTOR TO MESSAGE BOARDS:
Costa Rica Living and entrenos-cr
(Roy, Jananda, the mom/daughter team from Sedgway, Elena with Finca Amanecer and ___ discussing ideas for creating an Intentional Community)
SUSTAINABLE INTENTIONAL COMMUNITY - GAIA SANA:
One of Roy's BIG PASSIONS was to create an Intentional•Sustainable Community focused on Assisted Living Care geared towards those interested in living a Healthy Alternative Lifestyle. Steve Friedman wrote "As I mentioned to Sam, it's sad that Roy didn't get to experience the sustainable community that he worked on so long, now he will experience the Real Sustainable Community in the Sky.
Roy's state of health did not permit him to continue his project of community in the south. He was to be 82 years old next month. "Gaia Sana" is beautiful to see on the website: Gaia-Sana.org Perhaps it will be carried forward by others.
It showed the co-founders as follows:
Roy W. Lent – Co-Founder, Botanist
Jan Van Earp – Co-Founder, Researcher
Rock Killin – Co-Founder, Project Management
Jean Bateman – Communications"
TicoTimes.net/Current-Edition/Intentional-Community-Offers-Safe-Haven_Sunday-June-05-2005
ENERGY VENTURE
Atlantis Energy venture concentrating their research on Jatropha curcas for the production of vegetable oil as fuel for diesels.
TicoTimes.net/Current-Edition/Top-Story/News/Turning-to-Costa-Rica-s-plants-for-biofuel_Friday-November-04-2011Atlantis is still an entity, but inactive due to lack of operating funds. It could be bought, including a Japanese car. (if you're possibly interested in purchasing it - contact Sam Butler - samjcr@pobox.com - President, Atlantis Energy, S.A.
Learn more info on the sale at - exchange.allthingsbiodiesel.com/forums/t/191.aspx
WINE MAKER
Roy was partners in Awapa Wine - A light fruity refreshing maracuya (passion fruit) demi-sec, 100% Tico White Wine which involved no grapes at all.
TicoTimes.net/Business/When-Costa-Rica-Gives-You-Passion-Fruit-_Sunday-June-05-2005
TicoTimes.net/Legacy/Get-Action/In-Search-of-a-Heavenly-Ambrosia_Thursday-May-24-2007
MISC OTHER INFO:
From Internet years ago: WorkNets.org/wiki.pl?RoyLent
Hi, I'm new here, brought into the fold by Synnoeve. I'm a strange one: a 75 year-old wanna be ICer who lives in Costa Rica. My original training was in botany but I've also worked as a teacher, farmer, plant breeder, plant explorer and numerous other things.
Presently I am working with another person doing research on biofuel production here in Costa Rica. We are concentrating our research on Jatropha curcas for the production of vegetable oil as fuel for diesels. We feel that the initial work should be to develop small scale integral operations suitable for a single farm or IC. Although we are starting with Jatropha, we hope to develop mixed cultivations with other oil producing plants. Also we hope to develop cyclic, integral system using the poisonous Jatropha, not only to produce fuel oil but also to produce food for animals and humans. Roy Lent
BOTANIST:
COLLECTING HISTORY OF PHILODENDRON SUBG. PHILODENDRON
http://aroid.org/genera/philodendron/colecthis.php
Aside from these few collections of new species mentioned above no other new species were collected until the early 1960s. Roy Lent, living in Costa Rica and collecting between 1964 and 1971, made 24 collections of P. subg. Philodendon including five new taxa. These included: P. lentii Croat and Grayum, P. scandens var. kirkbridei, P. strictum, P. thalassicum Croat and Grayum, P. wilburii var. wilburii.
ORCHID PLANT FARMER:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3254249
Costa Rican orchids topic posted Thu, October 2, 2003 - 4:53 PM by Roy Lent
I'm busy building a web site for SACRO (an association - SAve Costa Rica's Orchids) - http://sacro.or.cr - I'm thinking up projects for them and financing methods also. The problem is to get seed of wild native species back up into the high jungle canopy. I invented a cute little top balloon filled with hydrogen system that is going to get a trial! I was trained as a botanist and came to live in Costa Rica some 38 years ago. Orchids? Well I got one named after me! Roy Lent
PLANT NAMED AFTER HIM:
He even had a flowering plant named after him - the Cestrum Lentii
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3254249 • species-id.net/wiki/Cestrum_lentii
Cestrum lentii A.K.Monro A Flowering stem B Flower C Longitudinal section through the corolla showing stamen arrangement D Style. Drawn from R.W. Lent 1051 (MO).
Diagnosis.
Most similar to Cestrum johnniegentrianum D’Arcy from which it can be distinguished by the secondary nerves of the lower leaf surface which are dark relative to the leaf lamina, the longer inflorescences bearing larger bracteoles and flowers with larger calyces. Costa Rica. Cartago: 8 km SE of Tapantí, 09°43'54"N, 083°46'43"W (DMS), 1500 m, 18 Jun 1967, R. W. Lent 1051 (holotype: MO-3279022).
Etymology.
This species is named after the US collector of the holotype Roy Lent (1931–), who worked for F in Costa Rica.
Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica
Botanicus.org/primeocr/botanicus8/b12675313/31753003189690/31753003189690_0038.txt
In the late 1960s, the intrepid geographer Arthur Weston (b. 1932) made numerous critical plant collections in the course of his solitary rambles in the high Talamancas, and Roy W. Lent, a student at the University of Oklahoma who settled in Costa Rica, launched a 10-year period of botanizing in rich and previously unexplored sites on the Caribbean slope.
Blessings to Roy, his family and ALL touched by him!
I've had MANY people close to me make their transition (die) so I've started a list of quotes, comforting words, songs++ in hopes that it may help someone:
ComfortingWordsForTransition.com
PLEASE "SHARE" this link with EVERYONE you know that ever crossed paths with Roy
ComfortingWordsForTransition.com
PLEASE "SHARE" this link with EVERYONE you know that ever crossed paths with Roy
PLEASE add "COMMENTS" below - share YOUR stories/experiences/perception of Roy with others!
(if you have any photos Roy's in, please e- them to me at LivingLifeInCostaRica@gmail.com so I can share them here. Vicki)
(if you have any photos Roy's in, please e- them to me at LivingLifeInCostaRica@gmail.com so I can share them here. Vicki)
6 comments:
Greetings and Blessings to All and to All Our Relations !
... and Many Thanks to You Vicki for all these details of the life of this wonderful man.
I spoke with his son Billy yesterday evening and can add that he intends that care for his mother Marguarita will continue in their home as it has for a while.
(more details available from me on request)
Billy also has a brother with a family in the United States.
Billy also said that Roy had declined rapidly over the previous 2 weeks and had sufficient medication to be pain free during the transition.
I had the remarkable gift of living with Roy and Marguarita for a year (ending about a year ago so caregivers could be resident). We were in relatively close quarters with each other and I have rarely experienced anyone as easy to live with as those two. I attribute this to an open-hearted willingness to accept things and people as they are. Their example in this is a great inspiration to me. I have encountered few as capable of community as they.
As the information Vicki posted demonstrates he was a man of remarkably varied interests, many of which deepened into expertise. He was always interested in learning about something new and where it might lead; and very patient with the ignorance of others.
He also had a great sense of humor which he used to lighten up any conversation or meeting that was getting overly serious.
Although Roy was an avowed atheist he was beginning to entertain the idea that death might not be the end of everything. This arose from a recent scientific article that said that there was no scientific evidence that death is the end, and some indications of continuation. He was also a big fan of the spirituality depicted in the movie AVATAR which I witnessed him watch for over a dozen times. He said that depicted a spirituality he could be engaged in.
Many Thanks Again to You Vickie for this way of celebrating the life of such a remarkable gentle man.
with Love and Gratitude,
jananda
In Lak'ech
jananda00@yahoo.com
jananda.zero (skype)
PS: Even though he has an email address, Billy does not do email. So it would be useful to print this blog and other information out and give it to him personally with our appreciation of his dad.
Blessings and condolences to Roy and his family. So sorry to hear of his passing, he was a kind and gentle man with amazing knowledge, he will be very missed in this life. Wishing you abundant blessings on your journey Roy...
Ginnee and Felipe
I had the great pleasure of traveling with him in his trips thru the jungles, cloud forests and dry tropical forests all over Costa Rica and as a child I didn't know the gift he gave me, which was to see the beauties of my country in a way most Costa Ricans have never seen. (before the Eco-tourism)
A walking encyclopedia of knowledge, a person that would always tell a joke in the middle of the conversation be it at the right time or the wrong one. (He always manage to make me laugh) a free spirit.
Coolest Dad ever.
Albert, please email me (LivingLifeInCostaRica@gmail.com) or call on my U.S. # - 1-941-312-7569 or at least share your email address here so people can send you condolences as well.
I send you a Heart-to-Heart Connection!
Vicki
Roy also had a species of Castilleja named after him, Castilleja lentii I visited Roy in C.R. in 2004, and we grid to relocate the plants at one of the sites from which he collected it. Unfortunately, our search was unsuccessful. Here is a link to my Flickr page concerning Castilleja lentii, containing photos of live plants in the field from an earlier visit by Roy, as well as images of the specimens he collected as the biological "type" for the species. Best wishes to all who knew this interesting man!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mark_egger_castilleja/sets/72157622363613316
Mark Egger
Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
I just found this site and so enjoyed reading of my brother's life in Costa Rica. I am his sister, living in Idaho in the U.S. We had a difficult and unhappy childhood so Roy, like all of us, was eager to disengage and move on from his initial family. But, there were times when, despite our age difference ( I was 13 years younger) that we had grand times! When I was attending Indiana Univ and he Purdue in Indiana, I would often go up and spend weekends with him in his tiny trailer. We would amuse ourselves making up absurd religions while eating his lukewarm tomato soup. He always said...why make it hot and then waste time waiting for it to cool down? Sometimes we ended up in NYC together. Roy had found an old doctor's bag...the black ones docs used to carry around. We'd be in a crowded elevator at lunchtime after visiting our Aunt who worked for a publishing company when Roy, carrying his doctor's bag would say..."You know , I don't think it was a good idea doing that operation right in his office. There was so much blood..etc" Everyone would be staring at us and I (at age 15) would be so humiliated running from the elevator only to find him staring and pointing to the top of a building saying.."Look, look I think he's going to jump!" I'd be asking where...where I don't see anything. After about 25 people gathered staring he'd grab me and we'd run off to the subway going from car to car yawning until we had everyone yawning. Oh yes, he was a fun brother! He was an avid stamp collector..in fact made the down payment on his first home by selling his collection. I was happy to have some communication with him shortly before he died. I sent him seeds that he was unable to get in Costa Rica. He never once mentioned his illness so it was a complete surprise to our other brother, Peter, and I. Even though we had very little communication, I miss him. I miss knowing that he is on the same spinning planet as me. I'm glad to hear that he had such dear friends in his life.
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