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

ossenbaCh — Orchids and orchidology in Central America
of Selby’s research component, but these three are the
most internationally recognized. The orchid program
has featured many world renowned orchidologists
over Selby’s 30 years, and will hope to expand in the
next 25 years to reflect the new directions of genetic
research and conservation biology. The bromeliad
identification center has grown to become the world’s
foremost site for taxonomic work on this small albeit
unique epiphytic plant family. Only in the past 20
years has Selby become renown for canopy ecology.
In addition to housing epiphytes, the forest canopy
is reputed to house over half of the species on Earth.
This importance of canopy science has expanded as
a consequence of the critical global needs to survey
this habitat before deforestation practices result in its
disappearance.
The research department boasts several valuable
collections. Since many orchids, bromeliads and
other epiphytes are no longer common in the wild,
the collections de Selby have become a valuable
global resource. These collections include a herbarium
(dried “library” of pressed plants) numbering over
80,000; a spirit collection of orchids (flowers of the
orchid family preserved in jars of alcohol so as to
retain their three-dimensional qualities); a specialized
library of botanical volumes; slides and video
collections of tropical plant-related visuals; botanical
files in the Orchid Identification and Bromeliad
Identification Centers; and live collections of tropical
plants in the greenhouses. Of special importance,
the herbarium boasts approximately 1,200 type
specimens, which represent the first collection of a
new species. In 2000, the research department was
restructured to better serve the needs of an expanding
and dynamic program over the next 25 years. The
research department is expanding. Over 30 years, a
proportionally high number of distinguished botanists
have worked for and contributed to Selby’s research
program. Tropical research has been conducted in
Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Costa Rica, Panama, Belize,
Samoa, Australia, Malaysia, and Cameroon as well as
Florida. Important events, such as the first and second
International Canopy Conferences (1994 and 1998),
the First International Epiphyte Conference (1991),
and the Orchid Conservation Workshop (1997), have
been hosted here. Important publications such as
the Icones Plantarum Tropicarum (a field guide to
217
orchids); Selbyana (the Gardens’ journal that features
articles on epiphytes and other tropical plants, and
canopy biology); and most recently a new local series
of Florida floral field guides have been produced by
Selby scientists. The official Selby Botanical Gardens
Press, which oversees all publications of the Gardens,
was launched in 2000.
Three new species of orchids, Erythrodes selbyana
Dodson, Telipogon selbyanus N.H. Williams &
Dressler, and Coryanthes selbyana Archila were
named in honor of the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens.
The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens have collaborated
closely, since the early 1990’s, with the Lankester
Botanical Garden of the University of Costa Rica, and
have made the Central American region one of their
main research areas.
The Flora Mesoamericana
That you are ‘jefe’ of this part of the
program [the orchids] is welcome news.
Ed Greenwood in a letter
to R. Dressler, May 18, 1983
The first major regional flora ever written in Spanish,
Flora Mesoamericana is a collaborative effort of the
Missouri Botanical Garden, the Instituto de Biología
of the National Autonomous University of Mexico
(UNAM), the Natural History Museum, London, and
numerous specialists world-wide. In Spanish, the
Flora pretends to describe, for the first time, all the
vascular plants growing in the southeasternmost (sic)
states of Mexico (including the Yucatán Peninsula) and
all the Central American republics.
The idea of the Flora Mesoamericana was promoted
by Peter H. Raven, Director of the Missouri Botanical
Garden, who since 1972 has actively promoted the
concept of a Central American Flora. In that year,
Raven organized a meeting, in conjunction with the
XIX Annual Symposium of Systematics, to discuss the
feasibility of the project. Although a general agreement
was reached regarding the necessity and usefulness
of the project, most among those attending though
that the time was not ripe to begin with it. One of the
main reasons to doubt that it was the right moment to
start with this project was that the Flora of Guatemala
and the Flora of Panama had not yet been finished. In
1979, after the conclusion of the Flora of Guatemala
LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009.