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52 LANKESTERIANA A B C D Figure 21. A — John Lindley (1799-1865). From a contemporary etching. In Orquídea (Mex.), June 1975: 90. B — Copy of a page of the list of specimens sent by Pavón to Lambert, where the epithet radicans was used for the the first time. Courtesy of the British Museum of Natural History and of Henry Oakeley. C — Augustin Pyramus De Candolle (1778-1841). Courtesy of the Oakes Ames Herbarium, Harvard University. D — José Cecilio del Valle (1777-1834). Hall & Pérez Brignoli, 2001: 168. LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009.
ossenbaCh — Orchids and orchidology in Central America Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the private library of the Torner family in Barcelona, and acquired for the ridiculous sum of 2,000 pesetas (ca. $12) for each illustration. As had happened 160 years earlier with the herbarium specimens, the illustrations of the expedition of Sessé and Mociño went abroad under the accommodating eyes of the Spanish government. Poor and sick, Mociño died in Barcelona in 1820. His friend, the Spanish botanist Mariano Lagasca, wrote in November of the same year to De Candolle: “Mociño noster sex abhinc mensibus e vita discessit in urbe Barcinonensi ... Vir certe melioris fortunae dignus” (McVaugh, 1998). The history of the expedition to New Spain does not have a happy end: Sessé in 1808 and Mociño in 1820, died without fulfilling their dream of publishing the floras of Mexico and Guatemala. Lambert died in 1842 and the provision in his will that his herbarium should be kept intact was not obeyed. His collections were auctioned in separate lots and dispersed all over the world (Anonymous, 1842). An important part of the materials that Pavón had sold to Lambert passed into the hands of the British Museum of Natural History, where they still remain. Another significant portion is today in Geneva. Pavón was finally asked to account for his acts in 1831 and three years later the Board of the Science Museum of Madrid suspended him from his salary. A sad guardian of the treasures brought from America by the botanical expeditions of the latter XVIII century, he died in disgrace in 1840. Mariano de la Paz wrote these words in reference to the collections of the Spanish expedition of 1862 to the Pacific 16 , words that are valid for practically all materials that came to Spain as a product of the great expeditions of the Century of Light: “These precious collections, brought together at so much effort, await, as many others of similar origin which have been neglected for years in the limbus of Science, the doubtful arrival of a naturalist savoir, who will glorify their authors, bringing them to light, if moths and ants did not get to them first” (Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid,1989: 97). The Cabinet of Natural History of Guatemala. Aside from its scientific achievements, the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Spain, bearer of the ideas and ideals of the Enlightenment, had a strong influence on the social and political environment of Central America in the last years of the XVIII century. The Royal Economical Society of Friends of the Country of Guatemala was founded in 1795, as a result of the new ideas that were slowly imposing themselves upon the colony. Life in the capital of Guatemala went on in this ambience of reforms, in the last years of the XVIII century, when the expedition arrived, proceeding from the largest and most advanced city in America, which was the capital of Mexico” (Maldonado Polo,1996: 78-79). Longinos Martínez established contacts to the Society, that had among its priorities the development of natural history. In December 1796, and due to the efforts of Longinos Martínez, the Cabinet of Natural History of Guatemala was solemnly inaugurated, with the presence of the prominence and high authorities of the Captaincy General. As we will see, the presence this day of José Cecilio del Valle (1777-1834) (Fig. 21C) was of extraordinary importance. During the inauguration, the museum of natural history opened its doors to the public and the first pupils were tested: Pascasio Ortiz de Letona and Mariano Antonio de Larrave. Mociño and Longinos Martínez shared their knowledge, carrying out the first physical and chemical analysis of the drinking water in the area around the city. Although the Society was prohibited in 1799, its ideas prevailed. And it is no coincidence that it was Del Valle who drafted, twenty two years later, the declaration of independence of the Captaincy General, that was signed in Guatemala on September 15, 1821, and that we find the name of Mariano Larrave amongst those who signed it. At the end of this period we must mention what was perhaps the best posthumous homage that Mociño received: that of his friend Pablo La Llave, who in 1832 designated the resplendent quetzal, the mythical bird of freedom in Central America since prehispanic times, with the name of Pharomachrus mocinno. 16 The “Spanish Scientific Commission of the Voyage to the Pacific (1862-1866)” explored mainly South America, with the exception of a short visit to Taboga Island (Panama), from where no collections of Orchidaceae are recorded. LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009. 53
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