orchids and orchidology in central america. 500 ... - lankesteriana.org

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132 Costa Rica), Scaphosepalum elasmatopus Schltr. (Pittier 3229, Panama), Scaphosepalum pittieri Schltr. (Pittier 11143, Costa Rica), Stelis chiriquensis Schltr. (Pittier 3228, Panama), Stelis panamensis Schltr. (Pittier 4490, Panama), Stelis perplexa Ames (Pittier 308, Guatemala), and Vanilla pittieri Schltr. (Pittier 6600, Costa Rica). Pittier’s orchids are probably in the National Herbarium in Washington” (Häsler & Baumann, 2000: 206). Pittier moved in 1922 to Venezuela and spent the rest of his life in this country, where he founded the National Park System and died in 1950. The Henri Pittier National Park, located along the Coastal Range in northern Venezuela, was created in 1937 and named in his honor. He returned to Costa Rica for a brief visit in 1938, for the celebration of the 50 th anniversary of the ‘Colegio Superior de Señoritas’. Pablo Biolley (1861-1908) formed part of the first group of Swiss teachers hired by the government of Bernardo Soto. Biolley established himself permanently in Costa Rica, obtaining the Costa Rican nationality and marrying a Costa Rican. He died in 1908 at the very young age of forty six. His sister Estela arrived in 1889 and was for many years a teacher at the ‘Colegio Superior de Señoritas’. Biolley accompanied Pittier during many of his explorations and was, for a short period (1904) director of the Instituto Físico-Geográfico. Although his main interest was in entomology, he made important contributions to the knowledge of the Costa Rican flora. To him we owe, among others, the discovery of the types of Masdevallia ecaudata Schltr. (Biolley 3127, Costa Rica), Maxillaria biolleyi (Schltr.) L. O. Williams (Biolley 1052, Costa Rica) and Telipogon biolleyi Schltr. (Biolley 1340, Costa Rica). Shortly after his arrival in Costa Rica in 1887, Pittier ...“obtained from the government the necessary funding for the assignment of a person in charge of the botanical service, for which he chose Adolphe Tonduz (1862-1921) (Fig. 44A), who was assistant at the botanical garden of Lausanne, Switzerland, and arrived in Costa Rica in June of 1889” (León, 2002: 147). “Botanical exploration of Costa Rica was not only closely related with [Tonduz], but depended heavily on him” (Häsler & Baumann, 2000: 151). However, Pittier was not easily satisfied. In a letter to John H. Barnhart (1915) he wrote: “Adolphe Tonduz LANKESTERIANA LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009. has been and is still, a laborious and painstaking collector, responsible for almost 60% of the 20,000 specimens of the Instituto Físico-Geográfico, ... but his collections contain again and again the same species and comparatively few new things.” Tonduz’ collecting excursions were best described by himself in his Herborisations au Costa Rica (1895). Pittier and Tonduz collected at times together, discovering several new species, among them Epidendrum abbreviatum Schltr. (Pittier & Tonduz s.n. – Costa Rica). After Pittier left Costa Rica, Tonduz went to work for the United Fruit Company. In 1908 he held again the position of curator of the National Herbarium and in 1911 he went to Guatemala, where during a short period he occupied a position in the department of phytopathology of the Direction of Agriculture. He died in Guatemala, a victim of alcoholism, in December 1921. With sadness we read Lankester’s words to Ames: “Poor Tonduz was also hopeless in this regard [alcoholism] and the possession of a small sum of money was immediately fatal. I kept him here 10 months during our previous stay in Cóncavas (Lankester’s farm near Cartago) and had him ‘dry’ the whole time, clothed [and] fed… he became a new man, but a salaried position in Guatemala broke him completely (in a letter to Ames, 1922).” Costa Rica owes to Tonduz the discovery of many new orchid species, most of them described by Schlechter (1923). Worthy of mention, among others, are the following: Bulbophyllum vinosum Schltr. (Tonduz 13734, Costa Rica), Camaridium dendrobioides Schltr. (Tonduz 17620 Herb. Nac., Costa Rica), Epidendrum acrochordonium Schltr. (Tonduz s.n., Costa Rica), Epidendrum majale Schltr. (Tonduz 17620 Herb. Nac., Costa Rica), Masdevallia tonduzii Woolward (Tonduz s.n., Costa Rica), Microstylis microtoides Schltr. (Tonduz s.n., Costa Rica), Ornithocephalus tonduzii Schltr., (Tonduz s.n., Costa Rica), Pleurothallis tonduzii Schltr. (Tonduz 17646 Herb. Nac., Costa Rica), Stelis aemula Schltr. (Tonduz 17632b Herb. Nac., Costa Rica), Stelis conmixta Schltr. (Tonduz 17632a Herb. Nac., Costa Rica), and Stelis sarcodantha Schltr. (Tonduz 17632 Herb. Nac., Costa Rica). From his time in Guatemala we know several collections of Orchidaceae: Scaphyglottis crurigera (Bateman ex Lindl.) Ames & Correll (Tonduz 409, Guatemala), and Osmoglossum convallarioides
ossenbaCh — Orchids and orchidology in Central America Schltr. (Tonduz 523, Guatemala) and at least one new type: Pleurothallis pacayana Schltr. (Tonduz 413 - Guatemala). The illustrious trio of Swiss naturalists is remembered in Costa Rica’s geography: the district of Biolley and the village of Santa María de Pittier, in the province of Puntarenas, and the peaks of Tonduz and Pittier, in the mountain range of Talamanca, remind us of those initial glorious years when the first national scientific institutions were born. Other collectors at the end of the XIX century “Normal people do not collect plants” Franco Pupulin, 2004 (pers. comm.) Ludwig Kienast-Zölly grew orchids in his native Hirslanden (Zurich), Switzerland, and occasionally sent plants to Reichenbach or to Kew for identification, among them Epidendrum kienastii Rchb. f., which was named in his honor. The archives of the Swiss Confederation indicate that Kienast-Zölly was “Consul général honoraire” in Mexico, in the period between 1870 and 1875. He lived, according to Boyle, for many years at Orizaba (Veracruz), “where he collected orchids with enthusiasm for his own delight.” Boyle goes on: “an Indian servant gave zealous help, partly, doubtless, for love for the flowers, but partly also for love of the master whose ‘bread he had eaten’ from childhood [...].”Boyle continues telling us the story of Sobralia kienastiana (which was the pride of Kienast- Zölly’s collection for many years), a crazy account of Indian chiefs, Catholic priests, human sacrifice and an orchid laid before the ‘Blessed Mother’, called ‘the Devil’s Flower’ (Boyle, 1901: 163-169). Other orchid species dedicated to Kienast-Zölly were Oncidium kienastianum Rchb. f., Ponera kienastii Rchb. f. and Trichopilia kienastiana Rchb. f. Kienast-Zölly was a contributor to the Gardeners’ Chronicle, where he wrote on Mexican orchids. Another Swiss, Rudolf Richard Pfau ( —1897), founded in San José, Costa Rica, in the final years of the XIX century, a nursery that sold a great variety of ornamental plants. He also collected native plants for exportation. Through his collections we know that he was also in Panama and Colombia, and at least one of the new species described from plants sent to Europe by Pfau came from Mexico: Vanilla pfaviana Rchb. f. Other species discovered by Pfau were: Epidendrum 133 pfavii Rolfe (Pfau s.n., Costa Rica), Pleurothallis pfavii Rchb.f. (Pfau s.n., Panamá), Sobralia pfavii Schltr. (Pfau s.n., Costa Rica), Telipogon pfavii Schltr. (Pfau 930, Costa Rica), and Trichocentrum pfavii Rchb.f. (Pfau 60, Panamá). Pfau wrote the first work published in Costa Rica about the orchids of this country: New, Rare and Beautiful Orchids of Costa Rica (ca. 1895), of greater interest for horticulture than for botany. In this work, Pfau gives advice as to how to grow and pack orchids for exportation, and includes a list of the species he had for sale in his nursery (Fig. 44B). But Pfau’s voice is also one of the first to address the rising concern about the destruction of our nature, when he describes one of our most beautiful orchids: “Cattleya skinneri, some ten years ago, was a common Orchid all over Central America; but in the last few years it has been exported by shiploads; and to-day – at least in Costa Rica – it has almost become rare” (Pfau, 1895: 6). Pfau also wrote several articles about Central America and its orchids, such as The climate of Central America, Orchid culture (1883), Notes on the fertilization of Orchids in the Tropics (1894) and Costa Rica and its Orchids (1896). As did Roezl and Wallis, Pfau sold his plants in Europe through the agency of Eduard Ortgies in Zurich. Many of his specimens are part of the Reichenbach herbarium in Vienna, often accompanied with beautiful illustrations by Pfau (Fig. 44C). “By the turn of the century, U.S. scientists had replaced Europeans as the Instituto’s principal collaborators. The first was apparently Sereno Watson (1826-1892), who had made important botanical explorations in California and went for a short period of time to Guatemala (1885), but had to stop due to illness. There he made several collections of Orchidaceae, among them the type of Pleurothallis (=Trichosalpinx) blaisdelli S. Watson (Watson, s.n., Guatemala), named in honor of his travel companion, F. E. Blaisdell and Notylia guatemalensis Schltr. (Watson, s.n., Guatemala). Watson, curator of the Gray Herbarium at Harvard until his death, was possibly who interested Donnell Smith in the flora of Central America” (Williams, 1972: 203). George Franklin Gaumer (1850-1929), president of the Natural History Society of Kansas University, established himself in 1884 in Yucatán, where he resided until his death. He was also briefly in Honduras and Guatemala (1885). Gaumer stands out for having LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009.
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