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160 A LANKESTERIANA C D Figure 51. A — Panama Canal under construction (1907). B — Barro Colorado Island as seen from Gatún Lake. Courtesy of the Missouri Botanical Garden. C — William Ralph Maxon (1877-1948). In the frontispiece of Fern Bulletin, 1903, vol. 11. Courtesy of Dr. Gustavo Romero. D — Charles Wesley Powell (1854-1927). Courtesy of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation. LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009. B
ossenbaCh — Orchids and orchidology in Central America The orchIds of The panama canal “Since its completion in 1914, the Panama Canal has been Panama’s economic base, and the United States presence has been the republic’s major source of frustration” (http://www.canalmuseum.com/ stories/history_of_panama_001.htm) “Completely different from Suez, where the desert hardly provoked any naturalistic concerns, the tropical nature of Panama was a complex challenge to Science.... At the center of these concerns about the impact of the canal on the surrounding environment was the formation of Lake Gatún. Its waters, while flooding the lower course of the Chagres River, would drown or drive away the majority of the plants and animals and would extinguish many unknown species.... Other unknowns were the changes that could take place once the waters and organisms of both watersheds came together...” (Heckadon-Moreno, 1998: 74) (Fig. 51, A—B). There was also a practical interest in undertaking a biological survey of such importance: to enrich the collections of Panamanian flora and fauna in the museums of natural science in the United States. Leaders among those who undertook the biological exploration not only of Panama, but of the whole American continent, where two institutions which had been founded fifty years earlier: the Smithsonian Institution and the Missouri Botanical Garden. The biological exploration of the Smithsonian Institution. “... When the floodgates of the great earth dam which impounded the Chagres River started to close in April of 1910... the world’s largest artificial lake started to form: Lake Gatún. Suddenly, with the imminent flooding of over 60 villages and hundreds of square miles of jungle, the biological study of the region affected by the canal works became a scientific priority. Never before had the biologists had the unexpected possibility of exploring the highest tree tops by simply rowing a boat [...] In this odyssey of knowledge that took place on the isthmus, the Smithsonian Institution of Washington D. C., which undertook the first great biological survey of Panama between 1910 and 1912, played a principal role” (Heckadon-Moreno, 1998: 73-74). The first group of a great number of specialists in different branches of biological sciences which would 161 visit the canal during the following years, gathering information and extensive collections, disembarked in Colón on December 28, 1910. In charge of the Botany was Henri Pittier, from the U. S. Department of Agriculture, who resided in Panama from 1910 to1912. According to the original plan, the study would require one year and would be limited to the immediate neighborhood of the canal excavations. However, the need to extend the area of study became clear very soon, and the explorations were extended to the whole territory of Panama. Field work, which lasted until March of 1912, began after Pittier’s request was granted and he could count on the help of William R. Maxon, who arrived in Panama in February, 1911. Pittier collected and classified 1,750 species of plants in 154 different localities, among them many orchids. “After he returned to Washington [1912], Henri and his young assistant Paul C. Standley attacked the gigantic task of analyzing and publishing the scientific data of the vast collection of Panamanian plants [with the help of European specialists], many of them new to science. The publications were to appear under the joint seal of the U. S. National Herbarium and the Smithsonian Institution” (Heckadon-Moreno, 1998: 84). Pittier wanted to write his final report in Latin, the classical language of Botany, employed by nine tenths of the systematic botanists, but he encountered resistance among the members of the Editorial Committee, who wanted everything to be written in English. Finally, the Secretary of the Smithsonian decided salomonically to publish the manuscripts part in Latin and part in English. The quarrel with the languages delayed the publications and upset the relations between the American and European naturalists. These difficulties paled however at the outbreak of World War I, when the relations among the international scientific community were finally and completely disrupted (Heckadon-Moreno, 1998: 85). William Ralph Maxon (1877-1948) (Fig. 51C) worked during his whole life for the New York Botanical Garden and the U. S. National herbarium. He had collected plants with Pittier in Chiriquí as early as 1900. In 1905 he visited Guatemala and in 1906 Costa Rica (Maxon, 1906). He arrived in Costa Rica at Puerto Limon and collected in the provinces of San José, Cartago and Alajuela. Some of the orchids of the Maxon herbarium were given to him by Pablo Biolley, who cultivated them in his garden in San José (Nash, 1907). Maxon spent a time during 1911 in Panama, where he LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009.
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