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

ossenbaCh — Orchids and orchidology in Central America
in 1900 and its first director was the aforementioned
Salvadorian David J. Guzmán. Antonio Garnier
would continue his botanical collections until 1938.
Under his specimens we find Maxillaria tenuifolia
Lindl., Epidendrum lacustre Lindl., Prosthechea
chacaoensis (Rchb. f.) W.E. Higgins, Cyclopogon
elatus (Sw.) Schltr., Cattleya aurantiaca (Bateman
ex Lindl.) P.N. Don and Lockhartia amoena Endres
& Rchb. f. Miguel Ramírez Goyena (1857-1927),
third director of the National Museum of Nicaragua,
published 1909 a Flora nicaragüense (1909) in
which he mentioned 94 species of orchids. “A flora
of Nicaragua published in 1909-1911 probably is not
really a flora of Nicaragua, and so far as I know was
not based on specimens. A persistent rumor has it that
this ‘flora’ was written in Honduras but funds could
not be found to publish it there. The title was changed
and funds found for publication in Nicaragua. Many
plant names do not represent plants found in any
Central American country” (Williams, 1972: 205).
However, Ramírez Goyena was important in the
development of the natural sciences in Nicaragua. The
herbarium of the Autonomous National University of
Nicaragua-León carries his name. After this, seventyfive
years had to pass until F. Hamer began his long
series of publications (beginning in 1982) about
Nicaraguan orchids, with the first fascicle of Icones
Plantarum Tropicarum (Hamer, 1982-1985). One
of the few collections of Orchidaceae that we know
from Nicaragua during this period is that of Franz
Eccarius Schramm (1873-1949), a missionary of the
Moravian Evangelical Church who in 1924 collected
the type of Campylocentrum sullivannii Fawc. &
Rendle (Schramm s.n., Costa de los Mosquitos).
The cause for the slow advance of the botanical
sciences during this period can perhaps be found in
the statement of Pérez Brignoli: “Education played
a secondary role. The ambitious plans of common
education, typical of the liberal period, remained,
with the exception of Costa Rica, on paper. The
vast majority of the rural population never escaped
illiteracy. In the national budgets, the assignments
for ‘Public Instruction’ were always surpassed by
the expenses of the military. The universities had
a mediocre existence, reduced to the formation of
lawyers and a few other liberal professions...” (Pérez
Brignoli, 1985: 140).
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Yucatan, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. One of
the largest collections of plants from Yucatán was that of
Georg Eduard Seler (1849-1922) and his wife Caecilie
Seler-Sachs (1855-1933). Eduard Seler, without doubt,
stands out among the numerous German researchers
who dedicated their life to the study of the national and
cultural history of Mexico and Central America. Since
the last years of the XIX century, Seler’s writings
were fundamental to the study of the autochthonous
Mesoamerican cultures, so much that Seler became
the ‘father of American studies’, both in Germany and
in Mexico. The merits of his wife Caecilie must also
be credited. She was Seler’s companion on all of his
travels, which could be financed thanks to her personal
wealth. Caecilie Seler made important investigations,
complementary to those of her husband, wrote and
published the travel journals and edited the works of her
husband after his death. She was also an extraordinary
pioneer in natural and archeological photography. The
Selers collected in Guatemala and Chiapas between
1887 and 1899; in Yucatán in 1902-1903; in Yucatán
and Campeche in 1907 and again in Yucatán in 1911.
Th. Loesener published an interesting account of their
travels in Plantae Selerianae (Loesener, 1899 & 1906)
with descriptions of the orchids by R. Schlechter.
Among their Guatemalan collections Schlechter
described four new species: Epidendrum papyriferum
Schltr. (Seler 2316, Huehuetenango), Microstylis
minutiflora Schltr. (Seler 2347, Huehuetenango),
Habenaria selerorum Schltr. (Seler 2492, Alta
Verapaz), named in his honor, and Stelis guatemalensis
Schltr. Other collections by Seler mentioned by Ames
were: Epidendrum cochleathum L. (Seler 2328),
Epidendrum diffusum Sw. (Seler 2320), Habenaria
limosa (Lindl.) Hemsl. (Seler 2294), Nageliella
angustifolia (Booth ex Lindl.) Ames & Correll (Seler
2623), Odontoglossum bictoniense (Batem.) Lindl.
(Seler 2326), Oncidium suttoni Batem. ex Lindl. (Seler
2454), and Spiranthes cinnabarina (Llave & Lex.)
Hemsl. (Seler 2396).
Albert Wendt (1887-1958), a collector of German
origin, was in Guatemala in 1900 and collected the
type of Lepanthes oreocharis Schltr. (A. Wendt s.n.).
The botanist Orator Fuller Cook (1867-1949) and the
geologist Robert Fiske Griggs (1881-1962) collected
in Guatemala between 1902 and 1906. In the year
of 1903 Cook spent a brief time in Costa Rica and
LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009.