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

ossenbaCh — Orchids and orchidology in Central America
in teaching, research and service. He retired in 1985,
becoming professor emeritus in biology. Although Dr.
Dwyer’s specialty was the classification and evolution
of tropical, Latin American plants, his primary work
concentrated on plant groups that made useful drugs
and resins. He became a pioneer in the young field of
bio-prospecting when he devised simple ways for plant
collectors to discriminate between species that could
prove beneficial to human health and those that could
not. A world traveler, Dr. Dwyer completed field work
in the Republic of Panama, Belize and Guatemala. He
also collected and preserved plant specimens in other
Central American countries as well as in Colombia,
Peru, Ecuador and Saudi Arabia. Many of these
specimens are housed at the Missouri Botanical Garden.
Dr. Dwyer was a research associate of the Missouri
Botanical Garden since 1954, and in 1984 was elected
Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, which was
founded in 1788 and is the oldest existing society in
the world devoted to the life sciences. Interestingly,
Dr. Dwyer also served as a consultant for the St. Louis
Coroner’s Office, examining victims of poisoning for
plant toxins. During his field trips in Central America,
Dwyer collected, among others, Encyclia belizensis
(Rchb. f.) Schltr. and Ornithocephalus inflexus Lindl,
both in Belize. In Guatemala he found Maxillaria
friedrichsthalli Rchb. f. and Pleurothallis brighamii
S. Watson, and in Panama the type specimen of
Epidendrum dwyeri (Dwyer & Hayden 7733), which
was dedicated to him by Eric Hágsater.
Thomas B. Croat, who directed the project in the
1970’s, relinquished management of the Flora of
Panama in 1977 to William Gerald D’Arcy (1931-
1999), who saw the work to completion (D’Arcy, 1980:
vi). Dr. D’Arcy was born in 1931 in Calgary, Canada,
and graduated with honors in political economy from
the University of Alberta in 1954. Between 1960 and
1966, he owned and managed a softdrink bottling
factory in Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, where
he kindled an interest in the local flora. Encouraged
by several botanists, he decided to change careers.
Dr. D’Arcy enrolled in the botany master’s program
at the University of Florida. In 1968, he was recruited
for the Ph.D. program at Washington University and
the Missouri Botanical Garden, where he worked
under Walter Lewis. He became involved in the
Flora of Panama program and wrote his thesis on the
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Solanaceae of Panama. He received his degree in 1972
and, at age 41, began his career as a research botanist at
the Missouri Botanical Garden. There he compiled the
first computerized database for the Flora of Panama
(or any other large flora) using software he wrote
himself, since it was before the era of readily available
technology. While in Panama, D’Arcy collected, among
others, Epidendrum bisulcatum Ames (D’Arcy 10944),
Pleurothallis cf. dentipetala Rolfe ex Ames (D’Arcy
10927), Pleurothallis crocodiliceps Rchb. f. (D’Arcy
10897b), and Sigmatostalix picturatissima Kraenzl.
(D’Arcy 10600A). In April 1980, with all treatments
ready in at least a manuscript form, a symposium
was held in Panama City to celebrate completion of
the Flora. In this same year, the Missouri Botanical
Garden published a reprint of the Orchidaceae by
Williams and Allen, which included “A checklist of
the orchids of Panama as known today”, by Dr. Robert
L. Dressler (Williams & Allen, 1980) (Fig. 63B). Many
new species of plants were dedicated to him, among
them Rondeletia darcy Dwyer from the Rubiaceae and
Anturium darcy Croat, from the Araceae.
Icones Plantarum Tropicarum & Icones
Orchidacearum. In 1980 the Marie Selby Botanical
Gardens began a project which was enormously useful
for researchers and amateur-lovers of our orchids: the
first of the two series of Icones Plantarum Tropicarum
(IPT) (Fig. 63C). Although both series also treated South
American orchids, the Icones of Nicaragua and Costa
Rica were of great importance. As doctor Calaway H.
Dodson wrote: “the Icones Plantarum Tropicarum
concept is not new in publishing. Similar projects
date back to the beginning of plant classification. The
idea that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ is well
applied here. Most treatments of floras of tropical
countries published during the last 50 years have been
long on text and short on illustrations. The expense
of preparation and publication of illustrations was
commonly cited as the reason. [...] The publication
of a series of illustrations by Dunsterville & Garay
in Venezuelan Orchids Illustrated prompted the
development of the IPT project. In that case, 6
volumes containing 1,000 superb illustrations with
accompanying text were published over a 17 year
period (1959-1976). “...A large number of species are
known only by published descriptions and herbarium
LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009.