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38 de Chile and collecting on the way some 250 species of plants” (Puig Samper et al. 2001: 18) (Fig. 13, C—D). Haenke’s botanical findings were published by Presl in 1827 with the title Reliquiae Haenkeanae seu Descriptiones et Icones Plantarum quas in America Meridionali et Boreali, in Insulis Phillipinis et Marianis Collegit. In 1793, when the expedition was preparing for the return voyage to Spain, he stayed in El Callao (Peru), wanting to continue his botanical explorations. Some years later he established himself in Bolivia, from where he continued sending the results of his collections. He died in the city of Cochabamba in 1816 (Slavik & Ceska, 2002). Louis Neé (ca. 1734-1807), French by birth, was working in Madrid in the garden of the Royal Pharmacy when Pineda proposed him as a member of the scientific group. He was accepted and, during the five years of the expedition, collected an important herbarium with over 10,000 specimens (Fig. 13E). Before leaving Madrid for Cadiz, where the expedition was to embark, Neé insisted in receiving a certain amount of money in advance, to cover his travel expenses and for the “subsistence of his family, which was left in charge of his wife, Doña Francisca Luz”. His request was finally granted and, with all financial matters settled, Neé writes: “the day of the expedition June 5, I left Madrid for Cadiz in the company of Don Antonio Pineda, Don Vicente Tofiño and Don Felipe Bauzá. I presented myself to the Commander, don Alejandro Malaspina and to don José Bustamante, second Commander of the expedition, who greeted me with great kindness. Our departure took place on July 30, at ten o’clock in the morning” (Muñoz Garmendia, & Sanz Álvarez, 1990:31). In the course of the expedition, Neé dedicated himself mainly to the collection of plants, although he also collected other objects, such as shells, minerals and ethnographic materials. These collections were made mostly alone, or in the company of Antonio Pineda, who was the member of the expedition with whom he worked together more often. The impression arises that the two botanists, Neé and Haenke, did not intend to form a team nor to sum efforts for a future joint publication. Each one collected on his own and made the descriptions separately, without taking part, apparently, in any attempt of cooperation. The herbaria were sent separately to Cadiz and the distrust went so far that Neé, on March 22, 1979, writes to Juan de Lángara: ‘since the valuable collection LANKESTERIANA LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009. has already been made, of which mister Haencke, the renowned German botanist and fellow traveler has duplicates, be it published in Spain as soon as possible so that the foreigners cannot anticipate us in prejudice of the national honor and that of the undersigned, who has worked so hard to be the first author and discoverer’ (Muñoz Garmendía, & Sanz Álvarez, 1990:37). Neé was the only of the three botanists to return to Europe. Of importance for Mesoamerica are his collections, together with Pineda and Haenke, in Panama, Nicaragua and Mexico. During the period of interest for this study, Malaspina’s corvettes sailed from El Callao in Peru to Guayaquil in Ecuador, from where they departed to Panama in October of 1790. The surroundings of the city of Panama and the island of Taboga where explored in December 1790 (Fig. 13F). From the journal of Luis Neé we have the following dates: October, 28: Weighing anchor in the port of Guayaquil towards Panama. November, 16: Arrival at Pericó Island, close to Panama. November, 17/December, 10: Suroundings of Panama, towards Punta Mala, Ancón Hill, the coast, convent of the Nuns of the Concepción, towards San Lázaro, Coconut Orchard, Pericó Island and others surrounding the harbor, coastline towards Arenal Grande. Excursion of 7 leagues towards Portobelo, on the Atlantic coast.. Pineda follows the Cruces River. December, 10: Weighing anchor from Panama. December, 11 / 14: Anchoring at Taboga Island. Neé and Haenke collect on Taboga Island December, 15: Setting sail from Taboga Island. It was then when Malaspina first studied the possibility of building a canal to communicate both oceans. In the first months of 1791, the corvettes sailed towards Costa Rica and separated. While the Atrevida, after visiting the island of Cocos, set a straight course to Acapulco, the Descubierta navigated along the Central American coast, landing in El Realejo (Nicaragua) and Sonsonate (El Salvador), arriving in Acapulco on March 25.
ossenbaCh — Orchids and orchidology in Central America It is again Luis Neé who gives us the dates in his journal: January 17 / 30: Sojourn of the corvette “Descubierta” in the harbor of Realejo (Nicaragua). Pineda and Haenke explore the surroundings of Realejo and go to the El Viejo volcano from January 20 to 22; on the 23, Pineda and Malaspina went to the Cardón Island, collecting mainly shells; Cayetano Valdés traveled to León and to the Telica volcano, collecting materials for the Natural History collection. On January 30, the “Descubierta” set sail for Acapulco (Muñoz Garmendia, & Sanz Álvarez, 1990:338). Presl, in his Reliquiae Haenkeanae, gives us the following description of the journey of the expedition along the Central American coast: “Mense DeCeMbre e sinu porTuque guayaquil uTerque navis abiiT, CursuM sepTenTrioneM versus DirexiT eT in sinu eT porTu panaMa CoMMoraviT. planTaruM panaMensiuM FasCiCulus DiligenTiaM popularis nosTri in hoC orbis loCo DeMonsTraT. naves Malaspina DuCenTe ii. Februarii 1791 aD aCapulCo in nova hispania pervenerunT, posTquaM porTuM eT urbeM guaTiMala TeTigerunT” [By the month of December both ships departed from the gulf and the port of Guayaquil, directing their course toward the North, and arrived to the gulf and port of Panama. The fascicle of the Panamanian plants demonstrates the diligence of our people in this place of the world. The ships conduced by Malaspina came to Acapulco in New Spain on February 2nd, 1791, after having touched the port and city of Guatemala] (Presl, 1827). After exploring the interior of Mexico and the northwest coast of the continent all the way to Alaska, the expedition continued in the first months of 1792 to the Marianne and Philippine islands. In 1793 the group was again in Peru and returned finally to Cádiz in September of 1794. It is noteworthy that, while the expeditions of Malaspina and Sessé and Mociño coincided during the year of 1791 along the Mexican Pacific coast, history does not record any encounter between either groups (Novo y Colsón, 1885). Haenke’s herbarium, with over 15,000 specimens, was dispersed among numerous European herbaria. In 1827, Carl Boriwog Presl compiled an important part which was conserved in Prague and Vienna and published his Reliquiae Haenkeanae, where he enumerated 27 species of orchids. In the second volume we find the only illustration of an orchid in our area of study, that Haenke named Dendrobium mexicanum and Christenson (1991) identified later as Eulophia alta (L.) Fawc. & Rendle (Fig. 14A). Among Haenke’s collections, Presl described at least four new species of orchids, which are widely distributed in our region: Oncidium obovatum Presl [= Barkeria obovata (Presl) Chistenson], Elleanthus linifolius Presl, Elleanthus lancifolius Presl and Vanilla odorata Presl. The herbarium of Neé stayed during long years in Madrid, in unopened boxes, without anybody bothering to study it. It came to the botanical garden of Madrid where, fortunately, it could not be reached by Pavón, who had an offer from Webb to purchase it. Things remained unchanged until recently, in 1980, the ‘Ancient General Herbarium’, which had survived more or less intact, was diluted in the ‘General Herbarium’ (that now holds over 466,000 sheets), thanks to an unfortunate and hasty decision of the ‘conservators’ (Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid, 1989: 70). Thanks to this, the study of the original specimens collected by Neé has become an almost impossible task. However, 370 sheets of botanical illustrations have survived, which are now one of our main sources of information about the collections by the botanists of Malaspina’s expedition. Among them we find four species of Orchidaceae. One is an illustration of Caularthron bilamellatum (Rchb. f.) R. E. Schult., collected in Guayaquil (Ecuador). The other three are Catasetum sp., from the island of Taboga (Panama), Ionopsis utricularioides (Sw.) Lindl. from the port of San Blas (state of Nayarit, Mexico) and Laelia sp. from the mines of Real del Monte (state of Hidalgo, Mexico). By far, the most interesting for us is the illustration by José Guío, draftsman of the expedition, of a species of Catasetum in the island of Taboga (Panama) during the last days of December 1790 and given by Neé the number 19. It is probably the first botanical illustration of a Central American species of Orchidaceae, with the exceptions of those by De la Cruz, Sahagún, Hernández and Tabernaemontanus, in the XVI century (Fig. 14B). The other two illustrations are from species that where not collected within our area of study. However, Ionopsis utricularioides (Fig. 14C) is a common species in all Mesoamerica and LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009. 39
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