118 Wallis published a few new species, presumably based on material collected while he worked for L<strong>in</strong>den, which resulted <strong>in</strong> a strong personal attack by L<strong>in</strong>den (1875), who accused Wallis of be<strong>in</strong>g a corrupt collector with little knowledge of plants. “I found him penniless, unknown, ab<strong>and</strong>oned. When he left me he had a reputation, a small fortune [...]. I took him from the Amazon Delta to the Isthmus of Panama, a journey which cost me 125,000 francs: an enormous sum compared with the paltry returns result<strong>in</strong>g from the specimens arriv<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> poor condition...” (Ceulemans et al., 2006: 146). Wallis answer was a letter of 18 pages <strong>and</strong> consisted <strong>in</strong> cit<strong>in</strong>g previous letters by L<strong>in</strong>den, <strong>in</strong> which he was congratulated for his work <strong>and</strong> excellent collections (Jörgensen, 2003). In Panama he suffered a bad attack of yellow fever, from which he barely recovered. He cont<strong>in</strong>ued work<strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong> arrived <strong>in</strong> Ecuador, but a second attack, comb<strong>in</strong>ed with dysentery, proved fatal. “Letters from the collector Edward Klaboch carried the news that Wallis died <strong>in</strong> the hospital at Cuenca, Ecuador, on 20 June 1878” (Re<strong>in</strong>ikka, 1995: 235). More than 20 species of Orchidaceae carry his name, among them Oerstedella wallisii (Rchb. f.) Hágsater, one of the most beautiful species of this genus. Carl Ernst Otto Kuntze (1843-1907) (Fig. 41A), the famous German botanist <strong>and</strong> naturalist, crossed Costa Rica from the Atlantic to the Pacific <strong>in</strong> 1874, <strong>and</strong> compla<strong>in</strong>s <strong>in</strong> his book (Kuntze, 1881) that he saw only six species of <strong>orchids</strong>. He had previously explored the isthmus of Panama, between Colón <strong>and</strong> Panama City. The results of his botanical explorations were published by Kuntze <strong>in</strong> his Revisio Generum Plantarum that appeared <strong>in</strong> several parts between 1891 <strong>and</strong> 1898. It conta<strong>in</strong>ed a large section on Kuntze’s nomenclatural system that became the source of a great deal of controversy. In the third volume, Kuntze replied to many of his critics <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>troduced much new material. It was published <strong>in</strong> two parts <strong>in</strong> 1893 <strong>and</strong> 1898 <strong>and</strong> conta<strong>in</strong>s a lengthy summary of his nonconformist system. For the rest of his life, Kuntze was engaged <strong>in</strong> disputes with the botanical community on the basic questions of plant nomenclature. An enemy of L<strong>in</strong>né’s b<strong>in</strong>omial system of nomenclature, he spoke of the date of 1753 (when L<strong>in</strong>né promulgated his system) as ‘a horrible fiction <strong>and</strong> mistake that I cannot accept as a scientific <strong>and</strong> honest man’ ”(Anonymous, LANKESTERIANA LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009. 1907: 67). In his Revisio Generum Plantarum, Kuntze describes over 1,000 new species of Orchidaceae. One of his collections was dedicated to him by Cogniaux: Campylocentrum kuntzei Cogn. ex Kuntze (= Campylocentrum micranthum (L<strong>in</strong>dl) Rolfe - Bolivia). Accord<strong>in</strong>g to some sources, Kuntze was <strong>in</strong> Mexico at the beg<strong>in</strong>n<strong>in</strong>g of the XX century, where he collected <strong>in</strong> the states of Veracruz, Puebla <strong>and</strong> Oaxaca (Anonymous, 1906: 167). However, no records of collections of Orchidaceae have been found from these travels. As one of many German emigrants who traveled to the tropics search<strong>in</strong>g for fortune, Baron Hans von Tuerckheim (1853-1920) (Fig. 41B) arrived <strong>in</strong> Guatemala <strong>in</strong> 1877. He settled <strong>in</strong> the region of Alta Verapaz, near Cobán, where he acquired the farm ‘Chicoyogüito’, thanks to a letter of recommendation from the German Charge of Affairs Werner von Bergen (Wagner, 2007: 178). There he lived, produc<strong>in</strong>g coffee <strong>and</strong> study<strong>in</strong>g the flora <strong>and</strong> fauna of the region. It is said that he was dis<strong>in</strong>herited by his German family, because he married a Guatemalan dancer. From 1883 to 1895, von Tuerckheim substituted for the Charge of Affairs at the German vice-consulate <strong>in</strong> Cobán, until he decided to sell his farm <strong>and</strong> return to Germany. In 1906 he returned to Guatemala for a short period <strong>and</strong> left f<strong>in</strong>ally Central America <strong>in</strong> 1914. The collections by von Tuerckheim whose numbers start with “II” are all from this last journey. In 1910 he made a short trip to the Dom<strong>in</strong>ican Republic (March-June, 1910), as German consul <strong>in</strong> that country. From this trip we know of several collections (Pleurothallis appendiculata Cogn., Tuerckheim 3233). When he started to have f<strong>in</strong>ancial problems due to the fall of the <strong>in</strong>ternational coffee prices, he began collect<strong>in</strong>g plants <strong>and</strong> seeds at a larger scale, which he exported to laboratories <strong>and</strong> botanical gardens. At a certa<strong>in</strong> po<strong>in</strong>t of his research <strong>in</strong> Guatemala he received f<strong>in</strong>ancial support from John Donnell-Smith, the great North American botanist, who distributed von Tuerckheim’s specimens to the most important herbaria of the world (Maldonado Polo, 1996: 135). Donnell-Smith published also his Enumeratio Plantarum Guatemalensium, describ<strong>in</strong>g von Tuerckheim’s collections <strong>in</strong> Guatemala, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g 40 species of <strong>orchids</strong> (Donnell-Smith, 1889: 41.45). His collections form the base for a more exact knowledge of the orchid flora of Guatemala, ma<strong>in</strong>ly that of Alta Verapaz, especially because he occupied
ossenbaCh — Orchids <strong>and</strong> <strong>orchidology</strong> <strong>in</strong> Central America A B C D Figure 40. A — San Jose <strong>in</strong> Endrés’ time. 19th century postcard, courtesy of Alvaro Castro. B — Epidendrum endresii Rchb.f. Illustration by A. Goosens, <strong>in</strong> Cougniaux <strong>and</strong> Goosens, 1896-1907. C — Endrés’ obituary <strong>in</strong> the Gardeners’ Chronicle, May 8, 1875. D —Ephraim G. Squier (1821-1888). In Squier, 1972: 28. E — Gustav Wallis (1830-1878). Courtesy of the Oakes Ames Herbarium, Harvard University.. E 119 LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009.
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