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

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Professor of Botany at Carleton College (Minnesota),
Stork collected in Costa Rica over 1,200 specimens of
plants. “The material gathered by Prof. H. E. Stork is
just about finished. Two new Epidendrums and what I
take to be a new Stelis” (Letter from Ames to Lankester,
November 8, 1923). Some of the new species of
Orchidaceae collected by Stork were: Epidendrum
linifolium Ames (Stork 417), Epidendrum storkii Ames
(Stork 460), Oncidium storkii Ames & Schw. (Stork
s.n.), Stelis storkii Ames (Stork 2103), and Telipogon
storkii Ames & Schw. (Stork 2101). Rafael Lucas
Rodríguez described him as follows: “Harvey Stork
was a North American of gigantic stature who, when he
first visited the isthmus, walked all the way from David
to Bocas del Toro, in Panama, to gain knowledge of
the country. I went everywhere with him the last time
he visited Costa Rica, and although he was already
very old, I had problems trying to walk as he did”
(Rodríguez, 1972: 14). The list of localities reveals
that Stork collected primarily in the Central Valley,
near Cartago and Orosi, making some excursions into
Guanacaste, Pérez Zeledón and Puerto Limón. At
some point he collected together with Willard Winfield
Rowlee (1861-1923) to whom we owe Pleurothallis
rowleei Ames (W. W. & H. E. Rowlee 236). Rowlee
made important investigations on balsa wood in the
Canal Zone, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and
Nicaragua.
Carroll William Dodge (1895-1988) came to
Harvard University as Instructor in Botany and was
made Assistant Professor and Curator of the Farlow
Library and Herbarium in 1924. While at Farlow
from 1924 to 1931, Dodge doubled the herbarium
collections by purchase and collection. Some of
his collections came from expeditions to the Gaspe
Peninsula, Canada (1923) and parts of Latin America.
In 1925 he was briefly in Panamá and Costa Rica, a
country where he returned in 1929, to study tropical
mycoses on a Guggenheim Fellowship. Dodge
received a second Guggenheim Fellowship for studies
in Europe, and after his return in 1931, he became
Professor of Botany at Washington University and
Mycologist at the Missouri Botanical Garden. It was
during his years in St. Louis that medical mycology
and lichenology became his major research interests.
He taught and visited in Latin America in Panama
(1934-1935); Costa Rica (1936); Guatemala (1940-
LANKESTERIANA
LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009.
1942); Chile (1950, 1960); and Brazil (1959). In
Costa Rica he collected throughout the country on
two occasions (November 1929 - May 1930 and
July 1936 - May 1937), often in the company of
the brothers Juvenal and Remo Valerio. Among his
specimens we find a good number of Orchidaceae,
among others Oncidium bryolophotum Rchb. f.
(Dodge 4781), Masdevallia striatella Rchb. f. (Dodge
4786), Masdevallia reichenbachiana Endres ex
Rchb. f. (Dodge 6145), Oncidium ascendens Lindl.
(Dodge 6388), Hexisea bidentata Lindl. (Dodge
6389), Psygmorchis pusilla (L.) Dodson & Dressler
(Dodge 16510) and Malaxis soulei L.O. Williams
(Dodge 9080). While in Panama, he led a botanical
expedition with Julian Steyermark in 1934-35, and
collected in the company of Paul H. Allen and Abel
A. Hunter. Brassavola nodosa (L.) Lindl. (Dodge
16903) and Sobralia decora Batem. (Dodge 106a) are
among his Panamanian specimens.
Charles Herbert Lankester
“Twenty three years ago today, the good ship
‘Atrato’ (now alas asleep in the depths off the
N. Irish coast) left Southampton with myself on
board en route for C.R., and here I am still ...”
Charles H. Lankester
(letter to Ames, December 12, 1923)
Of only 21 years of age, Charles Herbert Lankester
(1879-1969) (Fig. 50A), arrived at Puerto Limón in
December, 1900 and went on by train to the capital
of Costa Rica, arriving just in time to take part in the
“Ball of the New Century” offered by Costa Rica’s
President Rafael Yglesias in the National Theater of
San José. Better known as ‘don Carlos’, Lankester had
been born in Southampton, England, and came to Costa
Rica to occupy a position as assistant in the “Sarapiquí
Coffee Estates Company”. His contract was for three
years, with free travel from and to London, and with
a salary of one hundred and fifty ‘colones’ (a stately
sum at that time) (Urbina Vargas, 2005: 9). Sarapiquí
proved too humid for the commercial production of
coffee and the plantations had to be abandoned three
years after the arrival of don Carlos in Costa Rica. It
was here, however, surrounded by the most exuberant
tropical vegetation, that his interest arose for plants,
insects and birds. “Don Carlos Lankester arrived at