Leonardo Co

Leonardo Legaspi Co (1953 – 2010) was a Filipino botanist and plant taxonomist who during his lifetime was considered the "foremost authority in ethnobotany in the Philippines."

Co's education in Botany did not follow the usual track. He did not finish his bachelor's degree until 2008 because he was always too busy doing research out in the field. Dr Perry Ong, director of the Institute of Biology at the University of the Philippines Diliman summed it up at Co's wake by saying “Leonard Co entered UP as botany freshman in the early 70s and never left.”

In 2008, with Co already informally considered one of the foremost experts in his field, University of the Philippines Diliman named him the last graduate of the Bachelor of Science degree in Botany; some time in the decades since Co's enrollment, the course had been merged with the bachelor's degree in Zoology to form the bachelor's degree in Biology program. This unorthodox academic path also earned Co another distinction in the annals of UP: Co submitted his book on the medicinal plants of the Cordilleras in lieu of a thesis, making him the only student to graduate from the BS Botany degree without submitting a thesis.

Co worked as a museum researcher at the University of the Philippines Institute of Biology, and as a senior botanist at the Conservation International-Philippines.

Co was the founding president of the Philippine Native Plants Conservation Society. and received credit for discovering eight new species of plants. Aside from these, two species of Philippine endemic plants have been named in his honor: the Mycaranthes leonardi orchid and the Rafflesia leonardi, a parasitic plant species of the genus Rafflesia endemic to the Philippines and known for bearing the third largest flower in the world.

A year before his death, Co also documented the flora of the Bataan National Park, coming up with a catalog that lists 160 unique plant species, essential for guiding reforestation efforts on the 23,668-hectare park centered around Mount Natib.

Co, forester Sofronio Cortez and farmer Julius Borromeo, were working on a biodiversity project under the auspices of the Energy Development Corporation when they were killed in an incident involving members of the 19th Infantry Battalion of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in the forests of Kananga, Southern Leyte on November 15, 2010.

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Wikipedia