OFN was founded in 1964, due to the efforts of the botanists José Cuatrecasas and F. Raymond Fosberg.
[1] OFN's main goal is the publication of a complete inventory of the flora of the entire New World tropics.
OFN's annual meeting of the Commission and Executive Board is held in Latin America, usually as part of a botanical congress which is either national or regional.
[2] The business of OFN's annual meeting is conducted in English, Spanish, or Portuguese.
Scientists affiliated (in the present or past) with OFN include Frank Almeda, Pieter Baas, Brian Boom, Armando Carlos Cervi, Thomas Croat, Thomas Franklin Daniel, Gerrit Davidse, Robert Louis Dressler, Enrique Forero, Christian Feuillet, Jean-Jacques de Granville, Robbert Gradstein, Sandra Knapp, Peter Møller Jørgensen, Gwilym Lewis, Paul Maas, Scott Mori, Ghillean Prance, Peter Raven, Susanne Renner, Laurence Skog, Carmen Ulloa Ulloa, Dieter Carl Wasshausen, Maximilian Weigend, and Marga Werkhoven.