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

ossenbaCh — Orchids and orchidology in Central America
and motivating universities, foundations and other
organizations. This idea, which was first born in
Otto’s mind, is still being discussed, with some hope
of it becoming reality. In the same field, he worked in
Petén, a region whose forests were heavily exploited
for wood, trying to rescue the enormous numbers
of plants of orchids and other interesting epiphytes,
which are left to rot after the large felled trees are
cleaned off their branches, before transporting them
to the sawmills. For this project he obtained the
support of the Armed Forces, who allowed him to
plant the rescued plants on the trees of a forest at an
Air Force base. The Air Force would also contribute
with labor and the logging companies were expected
to bring from the mountains everything that grew
on the trunks of the trees and was usually left over.
Although the loggers initially accepted, they never
kept their part of the deal.
In recognition for his conservation efforts, Otto
Tinschert was in 1999 presented by the President of
Guatemala, Álvaro Arzú Irigoyen, with the Presidential
Medal of the Environment. Franco Pupulin named a
new Guatemalan species in his honor: Kefersteinia
tinschertiana (2004), now also found in Mexico. He was
a mentor to many students interested in the cultivation
of orchids and the methods of reproduction of these
plants. He was always willing to share his knowledge
and to collaborate with persons or institutions who
asked him for help, Tinschert co-authored with Moisés
Béhar the book Guatemala y sus Orquídeas (1999),
destined to bring to the wide public the beauty of the
local native species. In the international field, Otto
was a member of the Conservation Committee of the
American Orchid Society and of the Mesoamerican
Orchid Specialist Group of the International Union for
the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). He participated in
several World Orchid Conferences.
He was a hard worker, an honest man and an
enthusiastic and joyful person, beloved by all who
knew him. He loved living in Guatemala and had
bought, long years ago, an old abandoned corn field,
without trees except for one old avocado. Otto planted
over 3,000 trees and built his home. In the meantime the
property lies in Guatemala’s most exclusive residential
area and the house, in the midst of forests and gardens,
is truly what Otto called “my home-made paradise”.
There he spent his last years, in the company of friends
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and relatives who loved him, growing his orchids and
helping the young beginners as much as he could. This
was undoubtedly his best legacy (Béhar & Ossenbach,
2006: 490).
Otto Mittelstaedt (1919-2000) (Fig. 62C), was “an
extraordinary man and a beautiful person, who helped
more than anyone to the knowledge of the orchids
of Guatemala” (In the words of Moisés Behar, his
close friend). He was the son of the German Paul
von Mittelstaedt and Emilia Villegas, a Spaniard. His
father came to Guatemala in 1896, from the port of
Kiel, and began to work, together with countrymen
who had established themselves earlier, in the growing
of coffee. Mittelstaedt was born in Cobán, Guatemala,
on April 19, 1919. He went to Grammar and High
School at the German High School of the capital.
Shortly after finishing High School he married Maria
Concepción Sobalvarro, and moved with his wife to
live and work in a coffee plantation that had been
bought by his mother in the coffee region of southern
Guatemala. Working with the energy and enthusiasm
that were his traits, together with his wife and hand in
hand with the workers, he transformed the property in
a short period of time in one of the most productive
and best organized coffee plantations of the country.
In the 1980’s, with the coffee plantation that he had
inherited from his mother in full production and in a
good financial situation, but yet still in the prime of
his life, he returned to his native and beloved Cobán
to dedicate himself to his passion for orchids, leaving
the coffee plantation to his sons. Cobán, capital city of
the department of Alta Verapaz, lies in a region with a
high level of humidity and altitudes which range from
3,000 meters to sea level. “In Cobán it rains during 13
months of the year”, say its inhabitants. Mountainous
and with such a variety of climates, it is the region
with the largest density and diversity of orchids in
Guatemala. Through the good efforts of his son-inlaw,
Don Otto acquired a rural property, close to the
city, which had already a small nursery with some
orchids, mainly Lycaste. When Mittelstaedt acquired
the property, the terraces where full of metal bird
cages, since the previous owner had dedicated himself
to illegal cock-fights.
Mittelstaedt became part of the small group
of amateurs of the ‘Asociación Verapacence de
Orquideología’ (= Orchid Society of Alta Verapaz),
LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009.