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

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(Schenck 673). Cogniaux and Kraenzlin dedicated
several species to him, among them: Epidendrum
schenckianum Kraenzl., Habenaria schenckii Cogn.,
Stelis schenckii Schltr., and Zootrophion schenckii
(Cogn.) Luer.
The exact date in which Sander hired the French
collector Louis Forget (- 1915) (Fig. 54B) is not clear.
However, it is said that he had started collecting for
Sander thirty years before he died (Swinson, 1970:
224). This puts the beginning of his colleting activity
for the St. Albans firm at around 1885. On the other
side, in a letter to Sander dated May 27, 1897, Forget
writes: “Being forced to return to England by your
disgraceful treatment I received from your house
which has thoroughly disgusted me, I have determined
to resign my post as a collector ... It is now seven
years since I started collecting for you, and I think you
should have had more confidence in me ... as I have
always done my best for you”. This would put the date
of his initial contract with Sander at 1890. Anyway,
although he collected for Sander for a long period of
time, and was in his contract almost until his final day,
it is clear that his relations with his employer were not
always happy. After this letter, Forget came home, but
soon his problems were sorted out and he was back in
the jungles. But to judge from his correspondence, the
money situation did not improve: “I am perplexed...
I do not know what to do ... when will you send the
draft?” (Swinson, 1970: 128). Forget collected mainly
in South America, but in 1910 he was sent to Mexico,
in the search of Laelia gouldiana. Forget arrived in
Veracruz in November of 1910, with an order from
Sander which read: “When you find the plant I would
like 3,000 as quickly as you can send them.” Forget
finally found the plant, after only four days of search.
On February 10, 1911, Sander wrote to the director
of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew: “It is 23 years
since I collected this beautiful species, and until
Monsieur Forget sent this consignment no plants had
been collected... This Laelia flowers at Christmas ...
over two hundred spikes, each carrying many flowers,
and Forget writes it was a dazzling and wonderful
sight” (Swinson, 1970: 191-193). Several orchids were
dedicated to him: Brassia forgetiana Sander, Cattleya
forgetiana Rolfe, and Masdevallia forgetiana Kraenzl.
Sander brought in 1917 Epidendrum tricarinatum to
flower, Forget’s last discovery from Peru. “This bright
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LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009.
purple flower was to serve as Forget’s epitaph, for he
had died of a heart attack in Rennes on the 10 th August,
1915. Of him Sander wrote: ‘He was absolutely fearless
out in the forests, but disliked intensely the noise and
bustle of London and any large town. ... Louis Forget
was every inch a man’ ” (Swinson, 1970: 226).
Per Karl Hjalmar Dusen (1855-1926) was an
important Swedish botanist who collected mainly in
Brazil. Born in Vimmerby, he studied at the Technical
University of Stockholm and traveled in 1901 to
Brazil, where he worked as an assistant at the National
Museum in Rio de Janeiro. Kraenzlin described his
collections (1921) and the epithet dusenii is frequent
in the orchidaceous flora of that country. From one of
his collections in Parana he was honored with a new
orchid species Cryptophoranthus dusenii Schltr. He
was in Mexico around 1912 and collected the type
of Epidendrum heteroglossum Kraenzl. (Dusen s.n.,
Veracruz). He collected over 84,000 plants during
his life. His herbarium is at the Imperial Museum for
Natural History in Stockholm (Anonymous, 1949: 33).
Charles Russell Orcutt (1864-1929) had collected in
Baja California between 1882 and 1886 and came to
Veracruz in 1910, where he collected Dichromanthus
cinnabarinus (La Llave & Lex.) Garay (Orcutt 4286)
and the type of Schiedella pubicaulis (L. O. Williams)
Burns-Bal. (Orcutt 5056).
The Lancetilla Experiment Station. It seems strange
to talk about somebody who was an expert in avocados
in a history about orchids. Frederick Wilson Popenoe
(1892-1975) established in 1925 the Lancetilla
Experiment Station as a farm for the research on
banana of the United Fruit Co. The name Lancetilla
derives from a small but very spiny indigenous palm
(Astrocaryum standleyanum) whose spines have
the shape of small lances and is found with relative
frequency in the valley of Tela. The land on which
the station is located, eight kilometers to the south of
Tela, was originally the property of the Atlantic Fruit
Co. and was later transferred to the United Fruit Co.
Although Lancetilla was established originally for
the research on bananas, it very soon expanded its
activities. Thanks to Popenoe’s efforts, research was
extended to other areas. When Popenoe left Lancetilla
in 1941, the garden’s collection contained 764 varieties
of plants, 636 species, 392 genera and 105 families