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

ossenbaCh — Orchids and orchidology in Central America
[...] The branches which arched the deep stream on
our right were loaded with orchids and parasites, over
whose blossoms a few humming birds hovered as if
in defiance of the rain...” (Fig. 45C). After Cobán, he
crosses the mountains and begins the descend to the
Atlantic regions. “The scenery is splendidly tropical;
vines and orchids festoon the trees, from which you
are saluted by the merry chatter of the parrots...” And
two leagues later he arrives at a shrine dedicated to Our
Lady of Candelaria, where the offerings, among them
orchids, were very numerous (Boddam-Whetham,
1877: 150, 151, 167, 172, 186, 261-262). Already on
his way home, in Petén, near the village of Tenosique,
he found Peristeria elata Hook. “Here for the first time
I saw the curious Holy Ghost orchid -Espíritu Santo-
so called on account of the yellow dove-like form that
stands in the centre of the white globular flower”. And
in the same area: “One portion of the wood glowed so
brilliantly with a crimson flush that I went to see the
cause. It proved to be a number of splendid orchids
whose flowers graduated in colour from a pale pink
to a bright spotted crimson, the inner cup being pink
and white. The blossoms grew on a long spike, one
of which I measured, being over five feet in length,
and having on it more than one hundred flowers.
Afterwards I saw many trees laden with them, but all
near Tenosique and none on the other side of the river”
(Boddam-Whetham, 1877: 311).
Armando Reclus (1843-1927), an officer in the
French Navy, traveled to Panama on two occasions,
during the years of 1876 to 1878, recognizing and
surveying possible routes for a future interoceanic
canal. In 1878 the Colombian government finally
granted a French company the right to build a canal
across the isthmus. Napoleon Bonaparte Wyse,
Armando Reclus and Pedro J. Sosssa presented the
plans for the famous project and founded the Universal
Company of the Interoceanic Canal. A description of
the travels by Reclus was published in Madrid (Reclus,
1972). We find in it some interesting references.
Describing the merchandises that were offered to
the travelers in the railroad station of Gatún, Reclus
writes: “They also offer a plant from the Orchid family
(Peristeria elata), the Holy Ghost flower, which grows
in great numbers in the neighborhood, and is very rare
further away, as it seems; on the corolla of this flower,
deliciously scented and of a color white as wax, the
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stamen and pistils form a small group that resembles
a tiny dove variegated with red”. Months later, already
in the region of Darién, he describes ‘espavé’ trees
(Anacardium excelsum): “Their short, wide and curved
trunk, […] can almost be described as disappearing
under the stems of thousands of orchids…” (Reclus,
1972: 50, 182).
The British Mary Lester traveled in 1881 through
Honduras, riding from Amapala, on the Pacific Coast,
all the way to San Pedro Sula, where she expected to
find employ as a teacher. She marveled about the forest:
“… we went into a labyrinth, going in and out, where
the soil was firmer, free from the extended, uncovered
roots of the trees, and from the garlands of parasite
plants that fell from above…” (Lester, 1971: 196).
Carl Bovallius (1847-1917) descended from a
family from Northern Sweden. His father, Robert
Bovallius, was the Royal Librarian in Stockholm. Carl
studied at the University of Upsala, where he became
a professor in Biology. In 1881 he asked for a leave of
absence and traveled to Central America. He visited
Panama (February to July, 1882), Costa Rica (July to
October, 1882) and Nicaragua (October, 1882 to April,
1883), returning to Europe in 1883. The observations
made during his journey were the base for Viaje por
Centroamérica (1881-1883), published in 1887 in
Upsala and translated later into Spanish in 1977. In
his work he writes about a trip to the Atlantic region
of Costa Rica, in the company of Julian Carmiol and
Anton Huebsch, a botanist from Bohemia who had
made the trip mainly “to collect and study orchids”.
From the Hacienda Caño Seco, near Siquirres, where
they stayed for several weeks, Bovallius and Huebsch
continued to the region of Talamanca, in the company
of Costa Rican Bishop Bernard August Thiel. Jerónimo
Fernández, the priest who acted as the chronicler of
the expedition, tells us about the indian village of
San José Cabécar, where Huebsch found “an orchid
unknown to science” (Bovallius, 1977: 125). Huebsch,
a collector for Sander in St. Albans, traveled also in
Ecuador and Colombia, where he discovered three
new species: Maxillaria huebschii Rchb. f., Oncidium
huebschii Rchb. f. and Masdevallia huebschiana
Kraenzl. In Costa Rica he collected the type specimen
of Masdevallia flaveola Rchb. f. In the type protologue
we read: “discovered by Hübsch for Mr. F. Sander,
who has just imported a stock of it”. From the same
LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009.