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

ossenbaCh — Orchids and orchidology in Central America
insalubrity of Panama, submitted a report to the
government in Guatemala in which he stated that he had
found the desired communication along two different
routes. “The first one navigating upstream along the
‘Desaguadero’ [= the Drainage = the San Juan River]
to the mouth of the Sarapiquí, then upstream for more
than twenty leagues and from that point to the Royal
Embarkment (the mouth of the Tempisque River on the
Gulf of Nicoya). The road was of ‘hard earth and not
marshy’ and only 15 leagues long...”. The other route
consisted in what was later known as the Nicaragua
Canal, sailing the San Juan River upstream to the Lake
of Nicaragua and building from there a canal to the
Pacific Coast (Secretaría de Gobierno, 1924: 330-331).
This road of Sarapiquí was the only communication
between the central valley of Costa Rica and the
Atlantic port of Greytown, in Nicaragua, from where
the ships sailed to the United States and Europe, and
was of great importance in the history of the botanical
exploration of the country, until it was replaced by
the route Puntarenas-Balboa-Colón, after the railroad
across the isthmus of Panama was built (inaugurated
in 1855). Steamships sailed from Greytown to
Southampton (Royal West Indian Mail Steamers) and to
New York (Atlantic and Pacific Ship Canal Company)
twice a month. The journey to New York took 7 days,
to Southampton 32 days. (Molina, 1851: 41). The old
road to Sarapiquí was replaced in 1880 by the ‘road
of Carrillo’ 27 , which communicated San José with the
Sucio River and joined there the new railroad to Port
Limón. . Finally, the railroad between San José and
Port Limón was completed in 1890. From the builder
of both routes, Minor C. Keith (1848-1922), who
traveled frequently to the Costa Rican Atlantic region,
we have this description of the tropical rain forest:
“Their trunks were covered by climbing plants and
parasites of reddish colors and various shades of green,
by lichens, fungi, bromeliads, and the most beautiful
orchids” (Salazar Navarrete, 2004: 126).
After being in Costa Rica, Wagner and Scherzer
collected in Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and
Guatemala, “although very few species were described
based on specimens collected by Wagner and Scherzer.
The reason for this could be the loss of the botanical
collections during the earthquake of El Salvador in 1854,
when Wagner almost lost his life” (León, 2002: 139).
Wagner returned to Europe and shortly thereafter, in 1857,
sponsored by King Maximilian II of Bavaria, returned
to Panama and Ecuador. He dedicated considerable time
to the study of the possibility of connecting the two
oceans, a subject on which he published several articles.
Moritz Wagner and Carl Scherzer wrote in 1856 The
Republic of Costa Rica in Central America, published
in German. Their descriptions of the flora, fauna and
culture are still very interesting. “No other foreign
author has described with more sympathy the tiny state
called by them the most gentle and peaceful among the
fraternity of the republics of Spanish America, a country
blessed by Heaven, where nature displays in the slopes
of the mountains the most wonderful variety of climates
and products” (Pittier, 1908: 19).
Descriptions of orchids are frequently found in the
pages of this book: “Parasitic plants […] climbers,
vines, pendent vegetables and orchids, which group
themselves often in the branches in the forms of
candelabrums, of bouquets or also of stars…” “Higher
up [on the trunks] begin the tillandsias, ipomeas,
loranthaceae, agaves, cacti, dendrobiums [sic] […]”
“The begonias and orchids on the trees […] were here
of a particular magnificence”. “[…] The ostentatious
orchids, which -for their rare forms- resemble butterflies
or humming-birds with extended wings, grow on many
live or dead trunks” (Wagner & Scherzer, 1856: 122,
136, 137, 168). Wagner discovered the type of Triphora
wagneri Schltr. (M. Wagner 1778, Panama) and several
species were dedicated to him, such as Bulbophyllum
wagneri Schltr. and Stelis wagneri (Schltr.) Pridgeon &
M. W. Chase.
Scherzer would write later his Travels in the free
states of Central America: Nicaragua, Honduras and
San Salvador and gained worldwide fame through his
discovery in 1854 in Guatemala of the manuscript of
the Popol Vuh by Friar Francisco Ximénez, which he
published for the first time in Vienna, in 1861 28 . In 1863
Wagner wrote The province of Chiriquí in Central
America. No orchid collections by Scherzer are known,
27 So named in remembrance of Braulio Carrillo (1800-1845), President of Costa Rica between 1835 and 1837 and again between
1838 and 1842, who first thought of a road to the Atlantic along this route.
28 Although Scherzer’s publication came first, it was Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg who gave the manuscript the name of
Popol Vuh, Le Livre Sacré et les mythes de l’antiquité américaine, and who made it known worldwide.
LANKESTERIANA 9(1—2), August 2009. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2009.
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