146 especially <strong>orchids</strong>, which she grew <strong>in</strong> her large garden <strong>in</strong> San José. Costa Rica’s agricultural economy began to stagnate at the turn of the century, dim<strong>in</strong>ish<strong>in</strong>g the government’s ability <strong>and</strong> will<strong>in</strong>gness to support expensive <strong>in</strong>stitutions <strong>and</strong> research projects (McCook, 1999: 119). Contributions of private sponsors were of fundamental importance dur<strong>in</strong>g this period. Amparo de Zeledón sponsored many of the collect<strong>in</strong>g excursions throughout Costa Rica of the Swiss Adolphe Tonduz (of whom we talked <strong>in</strong> the last chapter) <strong>and</strong> the Alsatian Karl Wercklé (1860-1924). Dur<strong>in</strong>g the first two decades of the 20 th century, Tonduz <strong>and</strong> Wercklé were responsible for the collection of over two thirds of the 20,000 specimens <strong>in</strong> Costa Rica’s National Herbarium. In 1919, after receiv<strong>in</strong>g a letter from Rudolf Schlechter ask<strong>in</strong>g for Costa Rican orchid material, doña Amparo reacted with enthusiasm, arrang<strong>in</strong>g for Tonduz to press plants from her orchid garden <strong>and</strong> send<strong>in</strong>g Wercklé out on new collect<strong>in</strong>g excursions. The results were three shipments of herbarium specimens that were received by Schlechter between 1921 <strong>and</strong> 1923, <strong>and</strong> that were described as Orchidaceae Amparoanae <strong>in</strong> his Additamenta ad Orchideologiam Costaricensem (Schlechter, 1923). Among the specimens received from Amparo de Zeledón, Schlechter found three new genera <strong>and</strong> 62 new species. Lankester wrote with envy: “No wonder Schlechter had a rich CR collection, he had the whole of the <strong>orchids</strong> from the National Herbarium!” (In a letter to Ames, November 30, 1923). Schlechter honored doña Amparo with the dedication of a new genus: Amparoa (Fig. 47B) <strong>and</strong> numerous new species, among them: Cycnoches amparoanum Schltr., Dichaea amparoana Schltr., Epidendrum amparoanum Schltr., Gongora amparoana Schltr., Habenaria amparoana Schltr., Isochilus amparoanus Schltr., Maxillaria amparoana Schltr., Scaphyglottis amparoana (Schltr.) Dressler, Sobralia amparoae Schltr., Stelis amparoana Schltr., <strong>and</strong> Trigonidium amparoanum Schltr. After her husb<strong>and</strong>’s death <strong>in</strong> 1924, Amparo de Zeledón cont<strong>in</strong>ued with her scientific <strong>in</strong>terests <strong>and</strong> formed part, from 1929 to 1932 (together with O. Jiménez, C. Lankester <strong>and</strong> A. Alfaro) of the Board of Directors of the National Museum. However, she began dedicat<strong>in</strong>g her efforts <strong>and</strong> wealth more <strong>and</strong> more to religious works, which she cont<strong>in</strong>ued later <strong>in</strong> Honduras. She died <strong>in</strong> Tegucigalpa , the 20 th of April LANKESTERIANA LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009. of 1951 (St<strong>and</strong>ley, 1952: 68-69). Her importance <strong>in</strong> the history of Central American <strong>orchidology</strong> is fundamental, not only because of the new species that were discovered through her efforts, but because she became the center of the Costa Rican scientific world dur<strong>in</strong>g the first decades of the XX century. Her love for plants was <strong>in</strong>herited by her niece Herm<strong>in</strong>ia López- Calleja (Fig. 47C). Karl Wercklé (Fig. 47D) came to Costa Rica for the first time <strong>in</strong> 1897, the year <strong>in</strong> which his first orchid collections are dated. He did not come directly from Europe, but emigrated to the United States, where he worked as a horticulturist <strong>in</strong> the nurseries of John Lewis Childs, <strong>in</strong> New York. Childs sponsored Wercklé’s first journey to Costa Rica, <strong>in</strong> search of plants <strong>and</strong> seeds of ornamental value, for acclimatization <strong>in</strong> the American gardens. As early as 1899, Childs’ commercial catalogue described a plant “collected <strong>in</strong> the mounta<strong>in</strong>s of Costa Rica by Mr. Carlos Wercklé” (Childsia wercklei) (Gómez, 1978: 373. He returned to the United States <strong>in</strong> 1898 <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong> 1902 came back to Costa Rica, where he stayed until his death. In an article of 1909 with the title La subregión fitogeográfica costarricense (= ‘The Costa Rican phytogeographical subregion’), Wercklé described Costa Rica as “the privileged region of Tropical America”, add<strong>in</strong>g that “<strong>in</strong> truth, it is unlikely that any other country conta<strong>in</strong>s a flora conta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g the same number of species <strong>in</strong> a territory of the same size.” “The cause of this ‘great exuberance’, argued Wercklé, was Costa Rica’s irregular, mounta<strong>in</strong>ous geography, that created a great range of atmospheric <strong>and</strong> climatic conditions <strong>in</strong> a small area. These diverse climatic conditions, <strong>in</strong> turn, produced a wide variety of species. The diversity of Costa Rica’s plant species was even more than that found <strong>in</strong> Nicaragua <strong>and</strong> Panama, Costa Rica’s comparatively flat <strong>and</strong> botanically homogeneous neighbours” (McCook, 1999: 119). Shortly thereafter Wercklé published the first scientific article ever written <strong>in</strong> Costa Rica about the <strong>orchids</strong> of this country: Las Orquídeas de Costa Rica (Wercklé, 1913). Wercklé died <strong>in</strong> 1924 (the same year of the death of José Cástulo Zeledón), a victim of alcoholism. “Doña Amparo de Zeledón... attended to his funeral, bury<strong>in</strong>g the friend <strong>in</strong> the family mausoleum, where he still rests next to ‘don’ José Cástulo...” (Gómez, 1978: 366). We remember him <strong>in</strong> St<strong>and</strong>ley’s words: “There is no doubt that Wercklé received a good education, <strong>and</strong> he was
A C ossenbaCh — Orchids <strong>and</strong> <strong>orchidology</strong> <strong>in</strong> Central America Figure 46. A — Oakes Ames (1874-1950). Courtesy of the Oakes Ames Herbarium, Harvard University. B — Letter from Powell to Ames (Sept. 25, 1922) <strong>in</strong>troduc<strong>in</strong>g Charles H. Lankester. C — Charles C. Schwe<strong>in</strong>furth (1890-1970). Courtesy of the Oakes Ames Herbarium, Harvard University. D — Cischwe<strong>in</strong>fia pusilla (C. Schwe<strong>in</strong>f.) Dressler & N. Williams. Watercolor by Rafael L. Rodríguez. Courtesy of the University of Costa Rica. B D 147 LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009.
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