doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.15517/lank.v21i2.47581
LANKESTERIANA 21(2): 157–233. 2021.
RUDOLF SCHLECHTER’S SOUTH-AMERICAN ORCHIDS
IV. SCHLECHTER’S “NETWORK”: VENEZUELA AND COLOMBIA
Carlos ossenbaCh1,2,4 & rudolf Jenny3
1
Orquideario 25 de mayo, Sabanilla de Montes de Oca, San José, Costa Rica
Jardín Botánico Lankester, Universidad de Costa Rica, Cartago, Costa Rica
3
Jany Renz Herbarium, Swiss Orchid Foundation, Basel, Switzerland
4
Corresponding author: cossenbach@opbarquitectos.com
2
abstraCt. The fourth chapter of the series about Rudolf Schlechter’s South-American orchids again presents
abridged biographical information about the botanists and orchid collectors that formed part of Schlechter’s
South-American network and who travelled and worked in those countries on the continent’s northern and
Caribbean coasts, through Venezuela and Colombia. In the case of Colombia, we cross the isthmus of Darien
and arrive for the first time on the Pacific coast of South America. As in other chapters, brief geographical
and historical introductory outlines are presented for each of these countries, followed by a narrative on those
orchidologists who visited the area, chronologically by the dates of their botanical collections.
Keywords/Palabras clave: biography, biografía, history of botany, historia de la botánica, Orchidaceae
Venezuela. In March 1498, Christopher Columbus
sailed past the Orinoco delta during his third voyage
and continued into the Gulf of Paria. Columbus
described the new territory as la tierra de Gracia
(‘the land of Grace’). One year later, Alonso de
Ojeda arrived at the same coast and sailed into the
Gulf of Maracaibo. An Italian merchant from the
city of Florence by the name of Amerigo Vespucci
(1454–1512) was part of this expedition. Not only
did Vespucci lend his name to the new continent (Fig.
1), but he observed the native stilt houses along the
shores of the lake, which reminded him of the city of
Venice (Fig. 2). This prompted him to call this region
piccola Venezia (little Venice) or Venezziola in the
Italian language of his time, hence the country’s name
of Venezuela, by which we know it today (Fig. 3).
The name “Little Venice” became popular in
Europe probably because of the concession made by
the Spanish Court to the German merchants of the
Welser family to explore and govern parts of the South
American territory. Its translation “Klein-Venedig”
appears in various German documents of its time.
Following Schlechter (1919: 2), the territory
of Venezuela can be divided into four distinctive
regions: the flatlands along the Caribbean coast,
limited to the south by the second region, the northern
mountain chains (Fig. 4); the plains (“llanos”) which
extend to the west across the border with Colombia
and to the south and southeast across the Orinoco
River basin (Fig. 5–7); and the Venezuelan Guiana
Highlands, limited to the east and south by Guyana
and Brazil, respectively.
In the five volumes of his series Die Orchideenfloren
der südamerikanischen Kordillerenstaaten (1919–
1922), Rudolf Schlechter first gives a brief description
of each country’s geography, followed by an outline
of the history of its botanical exploration. It seems
reasonable to follow along the same lines.
In 1669, the Spanish Jesuit priests Monteverde and
Castan established the first mission to the tribe of the
Saliva along the Orinoco River in Venezuela, under the
name of Nuestra Señora de los Salibas. Another Jesuit,
José Gumilla (1686–1750), arrived in Bogotá in 1705
and, in 1714, went as a missionary to the plains along
the Orinoco, where he would spend the remaining 35
years of his life. A precursor of the enlightenment,
Gumilla showed great interest in natural history; in
1731 he published his main work, Historia Natural,
Civil y Geográfica de las Naciones situadas en las
riberas del río Orinoco (Natural, civil and geographic
history of the nations located on the shores of the
Orinoco River). On page 324 of this work, Gumilla
gives a description of vanilla which is worthy of being
repeated here: “…the country offers everywhere a
large correspondence of rich and abundant fruits,
among which it is of not less importance that fruit or
Received 5 February 2021; accepted for publication 1 July 2021. First published online: 6 July 2021.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivs 3.0 Costa Rica License.
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figure 1. Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512) awakening America. Engraving by Jan Galle after Jan van der Straet, ca. 1615.
The scene depicts Amerigo Vespucci representing the Old-World explorers as he wakes up a Native American from her
hammock slumber. Local flora and fauna dot the background, as well as natives having a cannibalistic roast.
figure 2. Maracaibo Indian dwellings. From The Universal Geography with Illustrations and Maps, Elisée Reclus.
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figure 3. Colton’s map of Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador, 1855.
aromatic spice which is commonly called Baynilla,
which by nature and condition grows wild (although a
method has already been found to cultivate it). It grows
in the dense parts of the forests and meadows and, if it
finds a hold, clings to the trunks and branches, no less
than the vines, which here climb and take possession
of the poplars. But if the seed falls -when it is ripe,
and the Baynilla opens and has the misfortune to grow
where it cannot find hold- then it follows the same
adversity of those men who, as much as they deserve
it, do not find who gives them a hand…” (Ossenbach
2020: 112–114).
In February 1754, the Swede Pehr Löfling (1729–
1756), one of Linnaeus’ disciples, sailed from the
Spanish port of Cádiz to Cumaná on Venezuela’s
Caribbean coast. For two years, Löfling botanized
in Cumaná and undertook several expeditions to the
Orinoco River and the Venezuelan Guiana, which
proved fatal to him. Plagued by malaria and yellow
fever, Löfling passed away in February 1756 in the
Jesuit mission of San Antonio de Caroní. Löflings
herbarium has disappeared, but his botanical
collections were described by Linnaeus, who in 1758
published Löfling’s Iter Hispanicum… (Travel to the
Spanish countries…) with special mention of the genus
Epidendrum. Also, the Library of the Royal Botanical
Garden in Madrid holds a manuscript of a Flora
cumanaensis, written by Loefling during his journey,
in which he described a total of 11 new orchid species.
Madrid also keeps several drawings prepared by the
draftsmen of the expedition (Fig. 8).
Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) and Aimé
Bonpland (1773–1858) arrived in Cumaná in June
1799 during their “Journey to the Equinoctial Regions
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figure 4. The Sierra Nevada of Merida. Unknown photographer.
figure 5. The “llanos” of Venezuela. Unknown photographer.
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figure 6. The Orinoco River Basin.
figure 7. The Orinoco River, oil on canvas by Pilar Casasa.
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figure 8. Caularthron bilamellatum (Rchb.f.) R.E.Schult.
Archives of the Royal Botanical Garden, Madrid. Div.
II, plate 49.
of South America”. They explored Cumaná and then
travelled west to Caracas. From there, their journey
took them through the “llanos” and to the Casiquiare
River, which connects the Orinoco to the Río Negro
and thence with the Amazon.
David Lockart (–1846), from 1828 Director of the
Botanical Garden in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, made
several excursions to Venezuela’s mainland, from
where he sent several Orchidaceae to William Hooker
at Kew. Carl Friedrich Eduard Otto (1812–1885)
travelled to Cuba in 1838 and, in 1840, went to the
north coast of Venezuela. He stayed in the country
until 1841, travelling from Cumaná southwards to the
Orinoco and making important botanical collections.
In 1840, Colonia Tovar, an important German
settlement 65 km to the west of Caracas (Fig. 9),
saw the arrival of traveller and botanist Johann
Wilhelm Karl Moritz (1797–1866). Moritz lived in
Colonia Tovar until his death. He travelled throughout
Venezuela and made extensive collections of orchids,
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mostly described by Klotzsch and Reichenbach. The
epithet moritzii was coined in his honour.
Belgian orchidologist Jean Jules Linden (1817–
1898), accompanied by Nicolas Funk (1816–1896)
and Louis Joseph Schlim (1819–1863), disembarked
in Venezuela in 1841 during their third voyage to
America. From Cumaná they travelled to Mérida and
went on further to Trujillo, the “llanos” and Carabobo,
returning in 1845 to Caracas. John Lindley described
dozens of new orchids collected during this journey.
Funk and Schlim again explored the departments of
Miranda, Carabobo, Barquisimeto, Zulia, Trujillo
and Mérida during the following years. Many of their
new orchid collections were, in this case, described
by H.G. Reichenbach.
Reinhart Frans Cornelis van Lansberge (1804–
1873) was Consul of the Netherlands in Caracas
during the 1840s and was later promoted to Governor
of Suriname. In 1845, during his time in Venezuela,
he sent a collection of orchids to Europe, described
by H.G. Reichenbach as Orchideae Lansbergianae.
German plant collector Hermann Wagener (1823–
1877) explored the northern Venezuelan states along
the Caribbean coast and the northern mountain chain
in the state of Mérida between 1848 and 1853, again
from 1854 to 1855. Wagener’s orchid specimens were
described by Reichenbach in over a dozen different
articles in the years 1854 and 1855.
Gustav Carl Wilhelm Hermann Karsten (1817–
1908) travelled in America from 1844 to 1847 and
1848 to 1856. He explored the states of Carabobo and
Bolívar and, for several months, made the German
Colonia Tovar his headquarters. During his second
journey, Karsten collected also in Colombia and
Ecuador. Another German, August Fendler (1813–
1883), spent the years of 1856–1858 in Colonia
Tovar, where he acquired a small property. His orchid
collection was especially rich in the genera Stelis and
Pleurothallis and was studied by J. Lindley and R.
Schlechter (Todzia 1989).
Finally, David Burke (1854–1897), a collector sent
by James Veitch & Sons, collected several orchids on
Mount Roraima in 1891.
Adolf Ernst (1832–1899; collected 1861–1899)
“I will never forget the pleasant surprise I felt
when for the first time, some twenty-seven years ago,
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163
figure 9. Colonia Tovar in 1844. Copper engraving after an oil painting by Ferdinand Bellermann.
the splendid panorama of the valley of Caracas opened
before my eyes from the heights of La Cruz, on the
old road from La Guaira. Pastures, mountains and
hills, and in the midst, the city with its red roofs, like
a big ruby set amongst countless emeralds.” (A. Ernst
quoted in Jahn 1932: 320).
Adolfo (Adolf) Ernst (1832–1899) (Fig. 10), a
German of Jewish origin, was born in Primkenau,
Silesia. After finishing high school in his hometown,
he moved to Berlin, where he studied natural sciences,
pedagogy, and modern languages. It was during this
time that he met the two children of Venezuelan general
Judas Tadeo Piñango. He developed a warm friendship
with them, and it was through their encouragement that
he moved to Venezuela.
Ernst arrived at the port of La Guaira in 1861
and became Professor of Natural Sciences at the
University of Caracas in 1874 (Anonymous 1900: 48).
He established his permanent residence in Caracas,
dedicated in body and soul to science. In May 1867,
now completely adapted to the Venezuelan life, he
founded the Society of Physical and Natural Sciences
of Caracas and later, in 1874, the National Museum. In
1876, he was named director of the National Library,
giving the institution great impulse. During the
government of Antonio Guzmán Blanco, who was the
absolute ruler of Venezuela from 1870 to 1899, he took
part in the organization of international exhibitions in
Vienna (1873), Bremen (1874), Santiago de Chile, and
Philadelphia (1876). In 1874, at the dictator’s request,
he organized the chair of Natural History at the Central
University of Venezuela, where he spread Lamarck’s
and Charles Darwin’s “natural selection” theories,
of which he was a fervent follower and which were
fundamental in Zoology and Botany.
During the 38 years he lived in Venezuela, his
work was unanimously praised by all who knew
him or knew his writings. An anonymous writer
commented in 1878: “Dr. Adolf Ernst is, as his name
betrays, a German who has deserted the Fatherland for
Caracas and is there labouring to grow science upon
a somewhat uncongenial soil. In botany, zoology, and
ethnology alike, he has worked hard and is the founder
of the “Sociedad de Ciencias Físicas y Naturales de
Caracas,” and, we believe we may add, the writer
of the greater part of the memoirs of that learned
association” (Anonymous 1878: 231). Venezuelan
historian Guillermo Morón wrote, “He came to
Caracas following in the footsteps of Alexander von
Humboldt -as many other Germans had done before.
He wrote in Spanish, French, English, German, even
in Portuguese and Italian… His ground-breaking work
was abundant and pointed the way for many others to
follow. Venezuelan Jews have now the task to divulge
his complete works” (cited in Padrón Toro 2013: 10).
And finally, in the words of Rudolf Schlechter, he was
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figure 10. Adolfo Ernst. Archives of Rudolf Jenny.
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figure 11. Title page of Ernst’s work.
figure 12. Habenaria caracasana Schltr. (=Habenaria
trifida Kunth). Unknown photographer.
the man with “the best knowledge about Venezuela’s
fauna and flora” (Schlechter 1919:10).
He travelled around the country and became an
authority on Venezuelan wildlife. However, with few
exceptions, he seldom made contact with the leading
European botanists, nor did he send specimens to
the leading institutions of his time. His collections,
which must have been numerous, ended up in the
herbarium of the University of Caracas, where insects
devoured them. Ernst is essential because, in his
works, we find the first attempts to prepare an orchid
flora of Venezuela (Schlechter 1919:10). This modest
flora, an Alphabetic catalogue of the genera and
species of orchids which have so far been collected
in the territory of the Republic, as Ernst called it, was
published in 1877 as part of his ‘Estudios sobre la
flora y fauna de Venezuela’ (Fig. 11). It enumerated
412 orchid species in 78 genera, Epidendrum (77
species), Pleurothallis (46 species), Oncidium (41
species), and Maxillaria (37 species) being the best
represented (Ernst 1877: 249–273).
Goodyera neglecta Ernst, was named by Ernst
from a collection at the Selva del Catuche, near
Caracas. However, the name is considered a nomen
nudum since Ernst never published a formal new
species description.
In September 1871, Ernst visited the islands of
San Roque, and from 28 to 31 May 1873, he made
a short excursion to the island of Margarita, which
resulted in his List of plants observed on Margarita
Island (1881). In this, he followed the order of families
established by Grisebach in his Flora of the British
West Indian Islands. The list included mostly plants
in cultivation. Foldats mentions a collection by Ernst
on Margarita of Oncidium luridum Lindl. Finally, in
January 1874, he explored Tortuga Island, off the north
coast of Venezuela. Ernst apparently also collected in
the British Virgin Islands and the Bermudas at some
point of his life (Ossenbach 2016: 362).
Joseph Dalton Hooker was among the few
European scientists with whom Ernst corresponded;
in a letter from Caracas dated 23 April 1869, Ernst
wrote that he was anxious to hear from Hooker
although he understood it was a busy time at Kew.
He hoped that Hooker had received a box of orchids
and a parcel of seeds as well as a letter that contained
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figure 13. Gomphichis gracilis Schltr. as G. adnata (Ridl.)
Schltr. Photograph by K. Senghas.
figure 14. Epidendrum ernstii Schltr. as E. klotzscheanum
Rchb.f. Photograph by José David Lacruz.
a diploma for Hooker as an honorary member of
Ernst’s society [Young Naturalist Society in Caracas].
The last box Ernst dispatched to Kew contained
Pleurothallis, Maxillaria, and a climbing Oncidium
(most likely a Cyrtochilum).
In 1919, Rudolf Schlechter published the first
volume of his famous series Die Orchideenfloren der
Südamerikanischen Kordillerenstaaten (the orchid
floras of the South American Andean States), which was
dedicated to Venezuela (see Schlechter 1919). In this,
Schlechter described 6 new orchid species, collected
by Adolfo Ernst, some of them named in his honour.
Habenaria caracasana (Fig. 12), Gomphichis gracilis
(Fig. 13), Pogonia nana, Epidendrum ernstii (Fig. 14),
Habenaria ernstii, and Govenia ernstii (Fig. 15)The
building that contains the collections of Venezuela’s
National Museum was named in his honour “Centro
Adolfo Ernst”.
Pommerellen, a region on the Baltic coast that during
the preceding 1000 years had frequently changed
hands between the Kingdom of Prussia and the Polish
Republic, to which it now belongs. Preuss studied
Natural Sciences at the universities of Königsberg and
Berlin, where he received his Ph.D. in 1885 with a
botanical dissertation.
In 1886, he travelled to Sierra Leone and the Gold
Coast collecting insects and plants. In the following
years (1888–1890), he was part of Dr. Zintgraff’s
expedition exploring the hinterland of Cameroon. He
was admitted into the German Colonial Service in
1890 and engaged as director of the Barombi Station
in Cameroon (Fig. 16A).
From 1892 until 1903, he was director of the
experimental garden in the city of Victoria (today
is known as Lembe), with an interlude from 1899
to 1900, during which he travelled under contract
with the Colonial Economical Committee (Berlin)
to Central and South America. While he continued
in the service of the Colonial office, over the next
20 years, he collected animals and plants in New
PAul rudolf PrEuss (1861–1926; collected
1889–1900)
Paul Rudolf Preuss was born in the city of Thorn, in
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ossenbaCh & Jenny — Rudolf Schlechter’s South American orchids. IV
figure 15. Govenia ernstii Schltr. Photograph by Ivo Kindel.
Guinea, Sierra Leone, Togo, and Cameroon (Frahm
& Eggers, 2001: 384).
A number of African orchids (all collected in
Cameroon) were named in his honour by Kränzlin and
Rolfe; among them are Calyptrochilum preussii Kränzl.,
Disa preussii Kränzl., Disperis preussii Rolfe, Eulophia
preussii Kränzl., Peristylus preussii Rolfe, Platanthera
preussii Kränzl., and Polystachya preussii Kränzl.
During his journey to the American Tropics, his
main interest focused on the cultivation of cocoa,
coffee, and sugar cane, but while travelling from
one plantation to another, he always found the time
to increase his botanical collections. After visiting
Suriname and Trinidad, he arrived in Venezuela, where
he spent several months. Since Preuss was travelling on
an official mission for the German Colonial Office, he
found guidance and support from the representatives
of the Grosse Venezuela Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft
(Great Venezuelan Railroad). This German enterprise
had built what was considered the most significant
engineering accomplishment in the history of the
country (Fig. 16B). Preuss used the railroad to travel
across Venezuela. He then continued to Ecuador,
167
Panama, Nicaragua, Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico,
where he was especially interested in the production
of Vanilla. Kränzlin described Vanilla preussii from
a specimen collected by Preuss in Guatemala. He
returned to Europe in 1900 after stopping briefly in
Cuba and Jamaica (Karsten 1902: 223– 225).
Paul Preuss published his journal of the expedition
under the title Expedition nach Zentral-und Südamerika
1899/1900 (Preuss 1901). While travelling from
plantation to plantation, Preuss always stopped to
admire the magnificent Venezuelan landscape and often
commented on the vegetation he found in the different
regions. “At 1,100 m we arrived at the rim of the
forest and enjoyed one last glance over the cordillera,
the valley of Aragua, and across Lake Valencia into
the ‘llanos’. The forest enclosed us with its tropical
vegetation, the gigantic tree-trunks and a surprising
variety of epiphytic Aroids, Orchids, Bromeliadas and
even an epiphytic palm, a species of Carludovica”;
“Vanilla pompona grows wild in the forest, its fruits are
used to parfume the linen”; “On the coast, near Puerto
Cabello, one finds vanilla growing wild, probably
Vanilla planifolia.” (Preuss 1901: 48–51).
Among the orchid specimens collected by Preuss in
Venezuela, Kränzlin described Dikylikostigma preussii
[=Discyphus scopulariae (Rchb.f.) Schltr.] (Fig. 17),
Habenaria galipanensis, and Habenaria turmerensis
as new species (Fig. 18). In 1919, Schlechter added an
additional new species by Preuss, named Epidendrum
tricallosum (Fig. 19).
KArl WilhElm John (–; collected imported plants
into Germany 1904–1905)
While at the turn of the century, British and other
European collectors and nurseries stayed loyal to Kew,
German botanists, collectors, and orchid growers saw
Berlin as their main orchid research center, and when in
need of species determinations, they initially turned to
Kränzlin. However, in the first decade of the 20th century,
Kränzlin was overshadowed by Rudolf Schlechter,
who became Germany’s leading orchidologist and
maintained this position until he died in 1925.
By 1906 Schlechter had already described a
plant of unknown origin as Oncidium johnianum
in honour of Karl Wilhelm John (-), retired captain
of the German Army and owner of a well-reputed
orchid nursery in the small city of Andernach, on the
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A
B
figure 16. A. Barombi Station in Cameroon, 1888. Photograph by Karl Zeuner. B. One of the bridges of the Grosse Venezuela
Eisenbahn–Gesellschaft, ca. 1904. Unknown photographer.
figure 17. Dikylikostigma preussii Kraenzl. [=Discyphus
scopularieae (Rchb.f.) Schltr]. Photograph by Magnus
Manske.
figure 18. Habenaria turmerensis Kraenzl. as Habenaria
armata Rchb.f. Photograph by K. Senghas.
Rhine River (Schlechter 1906: 4). In the same year, F.
Ledien published an article about the singularities of
Coryanthes maculata Hook., basing his observations
on a plant supplied by John and probably of Venezuelan
origin (Ledien 1906: 18). A founding member of the
German Society for Orchidology, Karl W. John was
elected to the board of directors of the Society during
its inauguration ceremony on 10 May 1906. The first
President was Max, Baron of Fürstenberg.
John published several small articles in the
horticultural magazines Orchis (John 1906) and
Gartenflora, in which he also regularly announced the
arrival of new orchid species at his nursery (Fig. 20).
“Several European nurseries, including Sander
and Sons, Veitch, and other English firms, have
imported large numbers of orchids, mainly of
horticultural value, from Venezuela. Here in
Germany, the author has received many specimens of
Venezuelan orchids for determination from Mr. O[tto]
Beyrodt of Manienfelde, near Berlin and K[arl]
W[ilhelm] John of Andernach. The latter has also
sent herbarium specimens among which were a few
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figure 21. Brassavola multiflora Schltr. as Brassavola
martiana Lindl. Photograph by Maarten Sepp.
figure 19. Epidendrum tricallosum Schltr. Illustration
from Schlechter’s Figuren-Atlas
(Mansfeld, R.
1929. Figuren-Atlas zu den Orchideenfloren der
südamerikanischen Kordillerenstaaten. t16.
figure 20. K.W. John’s advertising in Gartenflora, 1913.
novelties, especially those from the small–flowering
groups” (Schlechter 1919:11).
Before his publication on the orchid flora from
Venezuela, Schlechter had already described two
Brazilian orchid species imported by John: Brassavola
multiflora (Fig. 21) and Oncidium johnianum (Fig. 22).
But Venezuela was undoubtedly the country from
where John received his main supplies. In 1919,
figure 22. Oncidium johnianum Schltr. as Oncidium
barbatum Lindl. In Lindley’s Collectanea botanica…,
plate 27, 1821.
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figure 23. Diacrium venezuelanum Schltr. (=Caularthron
bilamellatum (Rchb.f.) R.E. Schultes). Photograph by
José Pestana.
figure 26. Stelis amblyophylla Schltr. Drawing of type at the
Harvard University Herbaria, # 00090517.
figure 24. Encyclia leucantha Schltr. Photograph by E. Hunt.
figure 25. Stelis amblyophylla Schltr. (=Stelis grandiflora
Lindl.). Photograph by O. Gaubert.
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Schlechter described 12 species imported by John
from that country, all of which had been collected
in the surroundings of Caracas. Besides Microstylis
johniana, dedicated to him by Schlechter, John
sent the following new species to Berlin for their
determination: Bletia stenophylla, Comparettia
venezuelana, Diacrium venezuelanum (Fig. 23),
Encyclia leucantha (Fig. 24), Stelis amblyophylla
(Fig. 25–26), Epidendrum pachyanthum (Fig. 27),
Epidendrum venezuelanum, Notylia venezuelana,
Pleurothallis intermedia (Fig. 28), Pleurothallis
nephrocardia (Fig. 29), and Epidendrum laetum (Fig.
30). Schlechter also described Laelia johniana from
Colombia and Maxillaria fuerstenbergiana from Peru.
Kränzlin and Oppenheimer found two additional new
species among John’s collections: Maxillaria johniana
from Peru and Oncidium johnii from Mexico.
hEnri frAnçois PittiEr (1857–1950; collected 1906–
1950)
Henry François Pittier (Fig. 31), a Swiss engineer
with strong interests in natural sciences, followed the
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171
figure 27. Encyclia pachyanthum Schltr. (=Prosthechea
hartwegii (Lindl.) W.E.Higgins). Drawing of type at the
Harvard University Herbaria, # 00070653.
figure 28. Pleurothallis intermedia Schltr. (=Pleurothallis
loranthophylla Rchb.f.). Photograph by Daniel Jiménez.
figure 29. Pleurothallis nephrocardia Schltr. Photograph by
P.C. Brouwer.
figure 30. Epidendrum laetum Schltr. (=Epidendrum
calanthum Rchb.f. & Warsz.). Photograph by Eric van
den Berghe
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figure 31. Henri Pittier. Photographed in 1880, 1903, 1914, and 1946. Courtesy of Luko Hilje.
LANKESTERIANA 21(2). 2021. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2021.
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173
figure 32. The city of Caracas in 1908, shortly before Pittier’s arrival. Unknown photographer.
figure 33. Henri Pittier National Park. Photograph by Santos R. Herra Faro.
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figure 34. Bust of Pittier at Henri Pittier National Park.
Unknown photographer
figure 35. Cranichis pittieri Schltr. Drawing of type at the
Oakes Ames Orchid Herbarium, #24415
call of Costa Rican Secretary of Education Mauro
Fernández and arrived in the small Central American
country in October 1887. He would never return to
Switzerland. Fernández wanted to staff a number of
recently founded high schools and successfully recruit
a number of Swiss professionals, among whom Pittier,
Rudin, and Biolley were the most important.
Pittier was born in Bex, Canton Waadt, on 13
August 1857. He graduated as a civil engineer from the
University of Lausanne and started a mapping survey
of the alpine flora of Switzerland. After breaking his
leg in an accident and while immobilized, he began
to read intensively about natural sciences. Thus, he
came into contact with the work of Eduard Haeckel,
the famous German naturalist, and was so fascinated
by his ideas that he decided to go to Germany, where
he started doctoral studies at the University of Jena.
From 1887 to 1903, Pittier organized and directed
the ‘Instituto Físico-Geográfico de Costa Rica’, one
of whose objectives were to map the republic. In need
of an assistant, Pittier convinced the Costa Rican
government to give the position to Swiss botanist
Adolphe Tonduz. Together, they became involved in
the organization of the National Herbarium in San Jose.
Pittier and Tonduz made botanical collections from
1887 to 1904: One of the results of these collections
was the Primitiae Florae Costaricensis, published
between 1891 and 1901 in three volumes containing
12 fascicles and written in collaboration with Theophil
Alexis Durand from the Botanical Garden in Brussels.
Pittier went to Washington D.C. in 1904 to work
for the United States Department of Agriculture at
the Bureau of plant industry. His grand title was
‘Special agent in the botanical investigation in tropical
agriculture”; this was shortened in 1912 to ‘Botanist’.
Between 1905 and 1919, he worked in Washington and
also travelled extensively in Central and South America,
where he collected in Panama, Mexico, Guatemala, El
Salvador, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. In 1906,
he made botanical collections in the region of Santa
Marta, Colombia. Epidendrum sanctae-martae was
described by Schlechter from a collection by Pittier
on the slopes of Santa Marta’s Sierra Nevada dated
June 1906. From 1910 to 1912, Pittier took part in the
LANKESTERIANA 21(2). 2021. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2021.
ossenbaCh & Jenny — Rudolf Schlechter’s South American orchids. IV
figure 36. Oncidium pittieri Schltr. Drawing of type at the
Oakes Ames Orchid Herbarium, #24261.
figure 37. Ornithidium pittieri Ames (=Maxillaria pittieri
(Ames) L.O.Williams). Photograph by Daniel Jiménez.
175
‘Biological Exploration of Panama’ by the Smithsonian
Institution, collecting over 4000 specimens. His
collections were of utmost importance for the flora
of Panama, where he would become a key actor after
the decision of Panama’s president Belisario Porras to
establish the Experimental Agricultural Station Matías
Hernández in 1916, the first research center in Panama.
Pittier was its first director.
While in Washington, Pittier travelled to
Venezuela, then under the government of Juan Vicente
Gómez, for the first time in 1913 as a consultant for
establishing a school of agriculture (Fig. 32). However,
his opinions were disregarded, and he decided to return
to Washington. During his short stay, Pittier found time
to make an essential collection of plants in the state of
Miranda, among which Schlechter described a number
of new species (Schlechter 1919). In 1917, he returned
to Venezuela in another failed venture to establish an
Experimental Agricultural Station.
In 1919, at the age of 62, Pittier travelled once more
to Venezuela, this time as director of the Commercial
Museum in Caracas. He established himself in the
country and, notwithstanding his age, travelled
extensively throughout Venezuela, publishing his wellknown Manual de las Plantas usuales de Venezuela
in 1926, followed in 1939 by its first supplement. He
also founded the National Herbarium in Caracas and
published some 300 books and articles in different
journals. Henri Pittier never left Venezuela again and
died at the age of 93 on 27 January 1950.
There are still discussions about the final number
of plants collected by Pittier, but without doubt, he
made a most important contribution, especially to the
knowledge of the floras of Panama, Costa Rica, and
Venezuela (biographical information mainly after
Jenny 2017).
The history of Venezuela’s National Parks began
in 1937, when Pittier advocated the creation of the
Rancho Grande National Park, situated to the north of
Maracay, in the state of Aragua. After Pittier’s death,
the park was renamed Parque Nacional Henri Pittier in
1953 (Fig. 33–34).
A large number of orchids were dedicated to
Pittier by Schlechter and Oakes Ames. We find
from his Costa Rican collections: Cranichis pittieri
Schltr. (Fig. 35), Vanilla pittieri Schltr., Notylia
pittieri Schltr., Oncidium pittieri Schltr. (Fig. 36),
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figure 38. Epidendrum pittieri Ames. Illustration from
Mutis’ Flora de la Real Expedición del Nuevo Reino de
Granada, vol. IX (Orchidaceae III), plate 33.
figure 39. Cytopodium naiguatae Schltr. Illustration from
Schlechter’s Figuren-Atlas (Mansfeld, R. 1929. FigurenAtlas zu den Orchideenfloren der südamerikanischen
Kordillerenstaaten. t8.
Ornithidium pittieri Ames (Fig. 37), Pleurothallis
pittieri Schltr., and Scaphosepalum pittieri Schltr. In
Panama, Pittier collected Lockhartia pittieri Schltr.
and Microstylis pittieri Schltr.,
Pittier collected Epidendrum pittieri Ames
(Fig. 38) in Colombia. And finally, the following
Venezuelan species were dedicated to him: Bletia
pittieri Schltr. ex Knuth, Habenaria pittieri Schltr. ex
Knuth (nom. nud), Physurus pittieri Schltr., and Stelis
pittieri Schltr. (nom. nud).
Additional new species from Venezuela were
described by Schlechter in 1919, including Elleanthus
galipanensis,
Hapalorchis
cheirostyloides,
Scaphosepalum trachypus, Cyrtopodium naiguatae
(Fig. 39–40), Notylia venezuelana, Stelis covilleana,
and S. calceolus.
Among Pittier’s collections in Colombia are:
Elleanthus scopulae, Epidendrum sanctae-martae,
Gomphichis caucana (Fig. 41–43) (all determined by
Schlechter); as well as Epidendrum suaveolens, E.
sulcatum, Lepanthes mirabilis, Gomphichis foliosa,
Stelis insignis, S. colombiana, S. pleurothalloides,
and S. vagans (determined by Ames).
According to Standley (1937–1938:49), “Henri
Pittier has undoubtedly gained a more intimate
knowledge of the natural history and especially the
botany of Central America and northwestern South
America than has ever been possessed by any single
person.”
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PAul rudolf WoltEr (1862–1942) And sAlomon
BricEño GABAldón (1826–1912; collected ca. 1912–
1919)
Paul Rudolf Wolter (Fig. 44) was –together
with other important German orchid growers such
as Otto Beyrodt and Wilhelm Hennis– among the
founding members of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur
Orchideenkunde in 1906. Ernst Hugo Heinrich Pfitzer,
the leading German orchidologist of his time, also
took part in the inaugural meeting in May of that year.
177
ossenbaCh & Jenny — Rudolf Schlechter’s South American orchids. IV
figure 40. Naiguata Peak (2765 m.) in Venezuela’s Coastal Mountain Range. Antique print of 1872.
figure 41. Gomphichis caucana Schltr. Drawing of type
made under Schlechter’s supervision at the Oakes
Ames Orchid Herbarium, #24628
figure 42. Gomphichis
photographer.
caucana
Schltr.
Unknown
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figure 43. Valley of the River Cauca. Photograph by C.V.C.
figure 44. Paul Rudolf Wolter (1862–1942). In Orchis
45/1941.
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However, he passed away unexpectedly in December
of the same year, leaving a vacuum soon occupied by
Rudolf Schlechter.
Paul Wolter’s firm, which he founded in 1885 in
Wilhelmstadt, near Magdeburg, was one of the oldest
German orchid nurseries. The firm published its first
sales catalogues in 1894. An anonymous note remarked:
“Paul Wolter has founded a specialized orchid nursery at
Kleine Strasse N° 1 (20 minutes from the main station)
and has published its first catalogue. Each plant has a
special symbol indicating whether it must grow in a
cold-, medium- or hot-house. We wish this enterprise
the best of successes.” (Anonymous 1894: 388).
Wolter served as an apprentice in horticulture
at several of the most prestigious German nurseries.
When he established his firm, he focused on highquality plants. He began with the import of plants from
all parts of the world, but before the turn of the century,
he started growing his first orchids from seed and
moved more and more towards orchid breeding. By
1904, Wolter already had 10,000 orchids in cultivation,
among them about 70 hybrids, the first German stock.
The first primary hybrids from Cattleya came from
Magdeburg; some of the most popular among them
were Cattleya Wolteriana = C. aurantiaca × C.
schroederae, and Stanhopea Wolteriana = S. tigrina ×
S. martiana (Henze-Brzesowski 1997: 124–125, Jenny
ossenbaCh & Jenny — Rudolf Schlechter’s South American orchids. IV
figure 45. Acineta wolteriana Schltr. Photograph by Finca
Dracula.
figure 47. Mormodes wolteriana Kraenzl. Photograph by
E. Hunt.
2017: 281). Wolter became Germany’s most important
specialist in the difficult task of orchid hybridization
(Anonymous 1906: 197). Besides hybridization, his
main business interest was not the production of cut
flowers but the acclimatization of imported plants for
sale to wealthy collectors.
Paul Rudolf Wolter sold his nursery in 1941 for
health reasons; he passed away the following year
on 28 April. Botanists Friedrich Kränzlin and Rudolf
Schlechter were frequent visitors to Wolter’s nursery.
179
figure 46. Maxillaria abelei Schltr. as Maxillaria rufescens
Lindl. Photograph by Danny Lentz.
Many hybrids and species were dedicated to him.
Besides the already mentioned hybrids (C. × wolteriana
and S. × wolteriana), a few South American orchids
were named in his honour by Schlechter: Acineta
wolteriana (Fig. 45) from Colombia and Batemania
wolteriana from Peru. Another Peruvian species
imported by Wolter was Maxillaria abelei Schltr. (Fig.
46). Finally, Kränzlin described Mormodes wolteriana
(Fig. 47), also from Peru.
Schlechter, in the introduction to his orchid flora
of Venezuela, mentions a small orchid collection from
the state of Mérida, of which no further information is
available: “We received from Mr. P. Wolter, while this
work was in print, a small orchid collection gathered
by merchant Salomon Briceño in the vicinity of the
city of Merida. The collection consists mainly of
valuable horticultural plants, only usable for the cutflower cultivation.” (Schlechter 1919:11).
Salomón Briceño Gabaldón (Fig. 48), based in
Mérida, was engaged in the commercial collecting
of natural history specimens from the early 1870s.
He was one of the leading suppliers of bird skins to
the well-known British zoologist Walter Rothschild
(Dorr et al. 2017: 20).
Colombia. Spain claimed the territory of Colombia
during a journey by Rodrigo de Bastida, who from
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figure 48. Salomón Briceño Gabaldón. Archives of
Rudolf Jenny.
1501 to 1502 sailed from the region of Guajira (along
the border of present-day Venezuela and Colombia) to
the Gulf of Urabá, on the isthmus of Darien. During
this voyage, de Bastida discovered the mouth of the
Magdalena River. Colombia’s geography is usually
classified into five natural regions.
The Andes mountain range stretches from the
border with Ecuador to the Sierra Nevada de Santa
Marta, near the border with Venezuela. It includes
Pico Cristóbal Colón (5730 m) (Fig. 49), Colombia’s
highest peak. Nearly three-fourths of Colombia’s
population lives in the highlands of the Andes.
To the east are the Caribbean Lowlands, where
the Andes split into three distinct, roughly parallel
chains or “cordilleras”, extending northeastward
almost to the Caribbean Sea. The valley of the slowflowing Magdalena River, a major transportation
artery, separates the Cordillera Central from the main
eastern range, the Cordillera Oriental (Fig. 50). The
LANKESTERIANA 21(2). 2021. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2021.
Magdalena is navigable deep into the interior of the
country, as far as the city of Neiva. The course is,
however, interrupted midway by rapids.
The Pacific coastal region is shared with Panama
and Ecuador. It is separated from the Caribbean
Lowlands by the lowlands of the Isthmus of Darién.
To the East are the great plains, or “llanos”; these
are often flooded in the region of Orinoquia, and they
continue into Venezuela (Fig. 51). They are bounded to
the east and south with the Amazon region. The rivers
of this region drain partly into the Orinoco basin and
partially into the Amazon.
Colombia has perhaps the richest and most
exciting orchid history of the Spanish-speaking South
American countries. During the 18th century, its
botanical exploration centred on the search for plants
with medicinal or commercial uses. Later, in the 1840s
to 1850s, at the peak of the wave of ‘Orchidomania’,
Colombia became one of the hotspots for orchid
collectors, especially for those searching for the
spectacular species of Cattleya and Odontoglossum.
During the last decades of the 19th century, orchid
history in the country slowly turned its back on
commercial collecting and focused again on scientific
botanical research.
Nikolaus Joseph Freiherr von Jacquin (1717–
1827) was the first European Botanist to collect on
Colombian soil. Jacquin was sent to the Caribbean
in 1754 by Emperor Francis I of Austria. He spent a
short time in the vicinity of Cartagena, where he made
botanical collections that included several orchids,
which he described after his return to Europe in his
famous Selectarum Stirpium Americanarum Historia.
We remember him in the orchid genus Jacquiniella,
established by Schlechter in his honour in 1920.
José Celestino Mutis (1732–1808) was born in the
Spanish city of Cadiz. He studied botany and medicine
at the University of Seville and went to Bogotá in 1760
as a personal physician of the Viceroy of New Granada.
He soon began a systematic exploration of the native
flora with the idea of publishing an extensive Flora of
New Granada, which he never realized although he
was able -with the help of native artists- to produce
many beautiful illustrations, including those of dozens
of orchids. It was said of Mutis that he never wrote
a Flora of New Granada… he painted it. The genus
Mutisia of the Asteraceae was dedicated to him by
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181
figure 49. Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta as seen from the Palomino River. Photograph by Matias Recondo.
figure 50. Steamboat anchored to the shore of the Magdalena River, 1933. Photograph by Robert S. Platt.
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figure 51. Flood-lands in Orinoquia. Unknown photographer.
Linnaeus the Younger and beautifully illustrated for
Mutis’ flora (Fig. 52).
In 1801, Mutis received two prestigious visitors at
his home in Bogotá: Alexander von Humboldt (1769–
1859) and Aimé Bonpland (1773–1858). They had
navigated the Magdalena River upstream to the city
of Honda before continuing by land to Bogotá. After
making rich botanical collections in the surroundings
of the city, Humboldt and Bonpland crossed the
Quindiu Pass in September and rode into Ecuador (Fig.
53). August Weberbauer, a famous plant collector in
Peru, called them “the second discoverers of America”.
French botanist Justin Goudot (–1848) arrived in
Colombia in 1822 and explored the country over the
following 20 years. He travelled in all directions: on
the Magdalena River, which he followed up to Honda;
to Bogotá and across the Andes; in the district of Santa
Marta on the Caribbean Sea; and finally, for a short
period, also in the vicinity of Caracas, in Venezuela.
His botanical collections were deposited at the National
History Museum in Paris.
After their travels mentioned above in Venezuela,
Jean Jules Linden and Louis Joseph Schlim crossed
into Colombia, making rich collections of orchids. They
travelled throughout the country, from the mountain
peaks of the Andes to the shores of the Caribbean Sea,
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returning in 1843 to Caracas. They crossed back into
Colombia to explore the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta
and finally embarked in Río Hacha to return to Europe,
making brief stops in Jamaica and Cuba. Nicolas Funck
(1816–1896), who had travelled previously with Linden
to Mexico and Brasil, arrived in Venezuela in the
company of Schlim in the year of 1845 and explored
both Venezuela and Colombia. Funck returned to
Europe in 1846, but Schlim continued collecting and
returned to Belgium in 1852.
Karl Theodor Hartweg (1812–1871) visited
Colombia from 1842 to 1843. He had been in Ecuador
before he crossed the Andes towards Bogotá. He sailed
down the Magdalena River to the Caribbean coast
from Honda, where he met with Jean Jules Linden.
On a Kew Botanical Gardens mission, William
Purdie (1817–1857) came from Jamaica to Santa
Marta, where he climbed the Sierra Nevada along the
same route taken by Funck the year before.
An important figure in the history of Colombia’s
natural sciences was José Jerónimo Triana (1828–
1890), who began his botanical journeys across
Colombia in 1851 as a member of the ‘Comission
chrographique de la Nouvelle Grenade’. Triana
travelled in the company of one of the most important
botanists and orchid collectors of his time, Józef Ritter
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183
figure 52. Mutisia clematis L. fil. Tempera on paper by Salvador Rizo. Iconografía mutisiana, div III, 1154. Archives of the
Royal Botanical Garden, Madrid. Mutis’ initials (C. M.) are skillfully interwoven with the plant details.
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figure 53. Pass of Quindiu. Engraving by Christian Friedrich Traugott Duttenhofer after a sketch by Humboldt, 1810.
von Warscewicz (1812–1866). In 1851, he explored
the Pacific coast, accompanying Warscewicz to the
port of Buenaventura, where the latter embarqued for
Guayaquil in Ecuador. The Polish collector would
return to Colombia in 1853 on his way back to Europe.
Cattleya trianae, one of the most beautiful of its genus
and the national flower of Colombia, known as ‘Flor
de Mayo’ (flower of May), was named by Linden and
Reichenbach f. in Triana’s honour. Triana travelled to
the Quindiu mountains in 1854 in the company of Dr.
Gustav Karl Wilhelm Hermann Karsten.
Hermann Karsten (1817–1908), in Schlechter’s
words, one of the “keenest observers among the
collectors and botanists of the South American Andes
states” (Schlechter 1919: 11), worked in Colombia
between 1852 and 1866. He arrived in Santa Marta
in 1852, after having spent 8 years in Venezuela (see
above). He spent almost a year exploring the Sierra
Nevada and then proceeded to Bogotá, where he
worked as a physician during 1853. After crossing the
Andes, he went as far as Riobamba, in Ecuador and
LANKESTERIANA 21(2). 2021. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2021.
returned north to embark in Cartagena on his way
to Europe. Between 1862 and 1869, he published a
two-volume flora of Colombia, under the title Florae
Columbiae: terrarumque adiacentium specimina
selecta in peregrinatione duodecim annorum observata
/delineavit et descripsit H. Karsten (Flora of Colombia
and its neighboring states with selected specimens
observed during twelve years of travel, ilustrated and
described by H. Karsten) (Figs. 54–55).
A countryman of Karsten, Hermann Wagener,
already mentioned above, had his headquarter in
Venezuela but visited Colombia twice (1852, 1855)
under contract to Jean Jules Linden. Although he spent
a relatively short time in Colombia, he collected a
large number of orchid species, most of which were
described by Reichenbach.
Gustav Wallis (1830–1878), again a German
collector, who brought over 1,000 plant species to
Europe, travelled through Colombia in 1866 and
again in 1872. From the Amazon to the Andes and
Sierra Nevada to the Magdalena River and Bogotá,
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185
figure 54. Cattleya labiata Lindl. In Karsten’s Flora Columbiae, vol. 1: plate 99.
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figure 55. Masdevallia coriacea Lindl. & Masdevallia caudata Lindl. In Karsten’s Flora Columbiae, vol. 2: plate 42.
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187
figure 56. Cypripedium roezlii Regel. Curtis’s Botanical
Magazine, 1876, vol. 102 (Ser. 3 no. 32): pl. 6217.
figure 57. Friedrich Lehmann, plant collector and German
Honorary Consul In Popayan, Colombia. Gardeners’
Chronicle, ser. 3, Vol. 35, 1904: 106.
he explored the country, making important orchid
collections. In 1878 he continued to Panama and
Ecuador, dying in Cuenca in 1878. We remember him
in Masdevallia wallisii and Neomoorea wallisi.
Benedikt Roezl (1824–1885), probably the most
famous collector of orchids of his time, was a Czech
traveller, gardener, and botanist. Roezl travelled
through the United States and Mexico (where
he collected over 2000 orchids in the vicinity of
Acapulco) and then to Caracas, from where he proudly
wrote that he had shipped three tons of Cattleya plants
to Europe. In 1869, Roezl went for the first time to
Colombia, where he collected in the Sierra Nevada of
Santa Marta. Three years later, he returned to Panama
and the Colombian port of Buenaventura. Finally, he
visited Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. He discovered the
Colombian species Cypripedium roezlii (Fig. 56) and
Cattleya chocoensis, among many others. Roezl died
in Prague at the age of 61.
(Fig. 57) better than Philipp Cribb: “Friedrich Carl
Lehmann collected orchids and other plants in
Colombia and Ecuador over almost three decades
from 1876 (Rolfe 1904). He was by profession a
commercial plant collector. He was also eventually
a landowner, a mine-owner, and German Consul in
Colombia. His extensive preserved collections of
herbarium specimens and illustrations of the plants he
collected form one of the most significant archives of
the northern Andes plants. His plant-hunting’s main
target was orchids, and the most important collection
of his preserved plants is now held in the Herbarium
at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Here they are all
part of the Herbarium Lehmannianum Colombianum
(Figs. 58–59). His specimens are also to be found in a
dozen other significant herbaria in Europe and North
America. He collected many living plants, especially
orchids, originally for Stuart Low of the nursery
firm of Messrs. Hugh Low & Co. of Upper Clapton,
London, and for Frederick Sander of Messrs. Sander &
Sons of St Albans”.
Lehmann also painted many of the plants he
collected; his iconography is now in the Archives of
friEdrich cArl lEhmAnn (1850–1903; collected
1867–1903)
No one could introduce Friedrich Carl Lehmann
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figure 58. Pleurothallis urosepala F.Lehm. & Kraenzl.
Herbarium specimen by Lehmann, Kew Herbarium #
742778.
figure 59. Caucaea phalaenopsis (Lindl. & Rchb.f.)
N.H.Williams and M.W.Chase. Herbarium specimen by
Lehmann, Kew Herbarium # 245759.
the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where almost 1000
paintings are deposited. Small numbers of his paintings
are also found at the Natural History Museums in
London and Vienna.” (Cribb 2010: 9). Several of
Lehmann’s herbarium specimens are accompanied by
pencil or water–color illustrations of the flowers or
flower details (Fig. 60–62).
Born in Platkow, Germany, Lehmann received
elementary schooling and did an apprenticeship in
gardening before travelling in South America, where we
first hear of him in 1876, when he was collecting orchids
in Ecuador for the London nursery of Hugh Low & Co.
In the same year, he also sent a collection of orchids
to Reichenbach, who described among these a number
of new species in his Orchideae F. C. Lehmannianae
Ecuadorenses (Reichenbach 1878b). Several of these
were named in Lehmann’s honour, such as Aeranthes
lehmannii, Masdevallia lehmannii (Fig. 63), and
Odontoglossum lehmannii.
Around 1889, we find Lehmann in Colombia. He
married a Colombian lady in the city of Popayán and
soon moved there, establishing the headquarters for all
his future plant collecting expeditions. Shortly after
that, he was named German Consul in the city.
Popayán (Fig. 64), in the valley of the Cauca
River, the surrounding mountains, and the slopes of
the Cordilleras well into adjacent Ecuador offered
an astonishing variety of flora and fauna. Lehmann
could not have found better ground for his orchid
collections. “Paradise for an orchid collector is a trail
that runs through the rich orchid habitat. Preferably the
trail should decrease in elevation from 3000 to 500 m
over a protracted distance, it should be in a high annual
rainfall area with the rain distributed evenly throughout
the year, it also should be in a region of extremely high
biodiversity and very pronounced local endemism. The
adjoining forests, cliffs, and embankments would be
festooned with the natural epiphytes and terrestrials of
the zone.” (C. Dodson in the foreword to Cribb 2010).
Lehmann’s travel journals contained descriptions
of the orchids he collected and often pencil drawings
of plant and flower details of those which aroused his
particular interest (Fig. 65–66). To accompany his plant
sales, he also sketched brilliantly, even decorating his
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figure 60. Cochlioda vulcanica (Rchb.f.) Benth. & Hook.
ex B.D. Jacks. Herbarium specimen and color sketch by
Lehmann. Kew Herbarium #254448.
figure 61. Lycaste trifoliata Lehm. ex Mast. Herbarium
specimen and color sketch by Lehmann. Kew
Herbarium #251476.
figure 62. Coryanthes elegantium Rchb.f. Color sketch by
Lehmann. Kew Herbarium #75414.
figure 63. Masdevallia lehmannii Rchb.f. Photograph by
E. Hunt.
letters with watercolors of orchids (Bynum & Bynum
2017: 55) (Fig. 67–69).
With no prior experience in orchid collecting,
Lehmann had to face, as an additional handicap, the
presence in the field of rivals such as Roezl and his
nephews Eduard and Franz Klaboch and Gustav
Wallis, among others. The competition was fierce, and
Lehmann often resorted to following other collectors
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figure 64. Houses at the entrance into Popayán, ca. 1876, after a sketch by Edouard André in his L’Amérique Équinoxiale,
p. 289.
figure 65. Sketch of orchids [Mormolyca (=Maxillaria),
Masdevallia, Trichocentrum] in Lehmann’s travel
journals. Archives of Rudolf Jenny
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figure 66. Sketch of an orchid [Vanilla sp.] in Lehmann’s
travel journals. Archives of Rudolf Jenny.
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figure 67. Watercolor made on location by Lehmann of Pescatoria lehmannii Rchb.f. (Bynum & Bynum 2017: 54).
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figure 68. Watercolor made on location by Lehmann of Masdevallia radiosa Rchb.f. (Bynum & Bynum 2017: 54).
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figure 69. Decorated letter to F. Sander, 30 May1886. (Bynum & Bynum 2017: 58).
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figure 70. Gongora sp. Color sketch by Lehmann. Kew
Herbarium #75416.
figure 71. Restrepia striata Rolfe. Color sketch by
Lehmann. Kew Herbarium #75438.
figure 72. Stanhopea annulata Mansf. Color sketch by
Lehmann. Kew Herbarium #75412.
figure 73. Sigmatostalix lehmanniana Kraenzl. Unknown
photographer.
to their favorite locations. Nevertheless, he gained
experience and sent thousands of both living plants
and herbarium specimens to Europe over the years.
“Friedrich Lehmann was a competent artist, and
the completed watercolour paintings are accurate and
attractive representations of the orchids that he saw
and collected. Many of the partly-colored ones are
also worth publishing, being good representations
of the plants that are easily recognisable.” (Cribb
2010: 3). During his lifetime, he painted hundreds
of orchids, of which the collection at Kew is a part
(Fig. 70–72).
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figure 74. Cyrtochilum lehmannianum Kränzl. as
Cyrtochilum retusum (Lindl.) Kränzl. Photograph by
E. Hunt.
figure 75. Dichaea lehmannii Schltr. Photograph by the
Sociedad Colombiana de Orquideología
After the first consignment of orchids to
Reichenbach, Lehmann repeated this strategy and
presented plants to other orchidologists and botanic
Gardens, such as Kew and Berlin. He “hoped for
identifications that would allow him to present new
plants to both the learned and the commercial world”.
(Bynum & Bynum 2017: 55).
Near the end of the century, Friedrich Kränzlin
published an extensive work about Lehmann’s
orchids, under the title Orchidaceae Lehmannianae
in Guatemala, Costa-Rica, Columbia et Ecuador
collectae, quas determinavit et descripsit (Kränzlin
1899). Among the many new species that he
described, a large number was dedicated to their
collector: Sigmatostalix lehmanniana (Fig. 73)
Pinellia lehmanniana, Leochilus lehmannianus,
Diotonea lehmanniana, Goodyera lehmanniana,
Habenaria lehmanniana, H. lehmannii, Notylia
lehmanniana, Pelexia lehmanniana, Cyrtochilum
lehmannianum (Fig. 74), Dichaea lehmannii,
Bulbophyllum lehmannii, Ornithidium lehmannii and
Ornithocephalus lehmannii.
Although he never met Lehmann in person,
Rudolf Schlechter always showed great interest
in his orchid collections. Lehmann began to sell
herbarium specimens to the British Museum in 1888,
and Robert A. Rolfe was engaged in describing
them at Kew. When Schlechter arrived in London
in 1898 after his first South African expedition, the
British Museum already had a significant number of
Lehmann’s Colombian orchid specimens. Lehmann’s
collections were the first to open Schlechter’s eyes to
the botanical richness of South American continent.
In a letter to Oakes Ames dated 22 October 1919,
Schlechter wrote: My list of Colombian Orchids is
ready for print, and I hope to bring the whole volume
out before the end of the year. […] I have described
over 250 new Colombia Orchids and 5 or 6 new
genera. Quite a lot of Lehmann’s things are included…
And again a few weeks later (11 November 1919): I
have not made a list of the Lehmann determinations,
but Cogniaux before he died has sent me, as he
wished that I should continue his work on the South–
American orchids, a book in which he had entered all
the determinations that he has found of the different
collectors in literature and that he made himself.
Schlechter made frequent reference to specimens
collected by Lehmann in his works of 1920 and 1924
on the Colombian orchid flora; he dedicated several of
them to the German Consul: Dichaea lehmannii (Fig.
75), Lepanthes lehmannii, Ornithocephalus lehmannii,
Pleurothallis lehmanniana and Telipogon lehmannii.
Friedrich Lehmann advertised his living plants in
the Gardeners’ Chronicle: One of his wealthy clients
was the Marquess of Lothian, who had a passion for
orchids of which he had a remarkable collection at
his home, Newbattle Abbey in Scotland. Masdevallia
plants were the Marquess’ favorites, and thus, he
conceived the idea of publishing a book on this genus.
The Genus Masdevallia, in the words of Cribb, “is
considered by many to be one of the finest illustrated
orchid books of the Victorian age” (Cribb 2010: 21).
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figure 76. Florence Woolward. Unknown photographer.
figure 77. Title page of “The Genus Masdevallia”, 1896.
Florence Woolward (1854–1936) (Fig. 76),
a freelance artist and botanical illustrator, was
commissioned by the Marquess to illustrate the book,
and Friedrich Lehmann wrote the description and the
geographical distribution for each plant. Kränzlin, who
had published a treatise of this genus (Die Gattung
Masdevallia, 1925), wrote in the introduction to his
work: “Then occurred a crowning element of luck
which rarely happens to a group of plants. The Marquis
of Lothian -Newbattle Abbey- made a sacrifice to
science by commissioning one of the most precious
monographs, which to this day is unsurpassed.”
The book contained 87 illustrations and was
published in nine parts between 1891 and 1896 (Fig.
77–78). Lehmann often sent copies of his drawings
of Masdevallia to Woolward. Three of these would
appear in the book: Masdevallia fractiflexa (Fig.
79), M. ophioglossa, and M. ventricularia (Fig. 80)
(Cribb 2010: 23). Friedrich C. Lehmann described
two new orchid genera: Trevoria and Gorgoglossum
(= Sievekingia Rchb.f.).
WilhElm hEnnis (1856–1943; collected 1876–1889 /
imported plants into Germany 1891–1943 / business
continued by his successors to the present day)
“It is said with right of the second third of the
nineteenth century, that in was in this period that the
great revolution in Europe’s flower culture and plant
breeding industry began. Especially England, France,
and Germany took up with enthusiasm all those
novelties that scientific explorers of the eighteenth
century had brought from the tropics of the old and
new world, mainly to the botanical gardens. From the
original scientific interest in the flora of the tropics
arose soon a demand from the wealthy garden friends
[…] European gardeners became aware of the great
possibilities and tasks with which they were entrusted
through the exploitation of the tropical flora.” (Hennis
& Hennis 1966: 2).
Wilhelm Hennis (Fig. 81) would establish the first
commercial orchid nursery in Germany in 1891. The
company, “Hennis Orchideenkulturen” has survived
for over four generations.
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figure 78. Masdevallia coccinea Linden ex Lindl. By Florence Woolward in “The Genus Masdevallia”.
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figure 79. Masdevallia fractiflexa Lehm. & Kraenzl. By Florence Woolward after a drawing by F.C. Lehmann in The Genus
Masdevallia”.
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199
figure 80. Masdevallia ventricularia Rchb.f. By Florence Woolward after a drawing by F.C. Lehmann in The Genus
Masdevallia”.
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figure 81. Wilhelm Hennis. In Hennis & Hennis 1966.
figure 82. Specimen of Stanhopea anfracta Rolfe. Kew
Herbarium.
In 1875, after having learned the gardening trade
with several of the most distinguished European
gardening firms, Hennis was hired by the great Henry
Frederick Conrad Sander at his establishment in Brügge,
in Belgium. He progressed rapidly, and one year later,
Sander suggested sending him as an orchid collector
to Colombia. The ‘suggestion’ was rather imperative:
“In two weeks you are to embark for Colombia, to
take over the work in the departments of Tolima and
Cundinamarca.” (Hennis & Hennis 1966: 10).
“Everything then happened very rapidly - the
young Hennis had only three days to say farewell to
his parents in Germany, and in late autumn 1876, he
landed for the first time on South American territory.”
(Manning 2010: 350).
Hennis travelled for three years through Colombia
and did not return to England until 1879. He
concentrated his efforts on living orchids and thus
seldom prepared herbarium material. In 1881, Hennis
left Sander & Co. and joined Joseph Charlesworth in
Bradford, Yorkshire, who was starting his commercial
nursery. Charlesworth and Hennis then travelled
together to South America, where they explored,
sometimes individually, sometimes together, vast
regions of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. From a living
plant collected by Charlesworth and Hennis in Peru,
Rolfe described a new species: Stanhopea anfracta, a
specimen of which is kept at Kew together with a note
from Charlesworth to Rolfe relating the circumstances
and locality of its collection (Figs. 82–83).
Wilhelm Hennis later wrote about some of his
experiences in Colombia in a vivid relation of orchid
collecting in the 19th century, which showed total
indifference to the destruction of forests and orchid
habitat: “Winter 1892/93. From the department of
Tolima [Colombia] I sent some 200 crates of Cattleya
trianaei. I have thrown away three times as many plants,
those which were damaged either during transit to my
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figure 83. Note from Charlesworth to Rolfe, Dec. 24, 1904.
figure 84. Hennis nurseries in 2001. Photograph by Thilo
Hennis.
figure 85. Odontoglossum hennisii. Photograph by Guido
Deburghgraeve.
figure 86. Trichopilia hennisiana Kränzl. Photograph by
Svetlana Bogatyrev.
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figure 87. Acineta hennisiana Schltr. Photograph by
Lourens Grobler.
figure 88. Maxillaria hennisiana Schltr. Photograph by
Ecuagenera.
headquarters or during the felling of the trees on which
they grew.” (In Manning 2010: 350). After having
travelled through South America and Southeast Asia
until 1899, always under contract with Charlesworth,
Hennis decided to settle in his hometown. In 1891
opened his nursery in Hildesheim to the public.
The demand for Colombian orchids rose
continuously, and Hennis decided to send his own
collector to explore northern South America. Hermann
Hopf (see later), with an apprenticeship in gardening at
the renowned Pfitzer nursery in Stuttgart, established
himself in Bogotá. There he found in his countrymen
Kalbreyer and Bungeroth, at the former’s nursery “La
Flora”, support and advice during the first months of
his stay (Hennis & Hennis 1966). The most important
German orchidologists of their time, the eternal
rivals Kränzlin and Schlechter, were frequent guests
of Wilhelm Hennis. However, following the ‘rule’
established when they visited the Wolter nurseries,
they planned their visits to not clash with each other.
But the time came when Europe especially began
to realize that orchid habitats and virgin tropical forests
had to be preserved. “… large importations of orchids
from the tropics were no longer possible, so Hennis
had to use his other horticultural skills. Patience
coupled with tedious and difficult work resulted in
many orchids being raised from seed, but taking from
four to six years to flower.” (Manning 2010: 352).
Hennis’s efforts were continued by his son Heinrich
and his grandson Kurt. In March 1945, everything
seemed lost: the city of Hildesheim was destroyed
during an allied bombing raid. The Hennis nurseries
were burned to the ground. Heinrich and Kurt Hennis,
under indescribable difficulties, built new greenhouses
which -once again- slowly filled up with orchids (Fig.
84). Thilo Hennis, old Wilhelm’s great-grandson,
became the last link to the now almost 130-year-old
traditional enterprise (Knott 1986).
Besides Stanhopea anfracta, Rolfe described
from Hennis’s collections in South America Cattleya
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hennisiana (1889) and Odontoglossum hennisii (1891)
(Fig. 85). Collected by Hennis, these plants reached
Rolfe through Charlesworth´s nursery. All other
contributions by Wilhelm Hennis to the knowledge
of the Colombian orchid flora were made after he had
returned from South America in 1889. It was from his
imports of living plants that first Kränzlin and then
Schlechter received a critical number of specimens
that they described as new orchid species in 1906–
1908 and 1920, respectively. And then there were the
collections of Hennis’s collector Hermann Hopf, which
Schlechter would describe in 1924 in his Beiträge zur
Orchideenkunde von Colombia.
Two new South American orchid species were
dedicated to Hennis by Friedrich Kränzlin: Trichopilia
hennisiana Kränzl. (1906) (Fig. 86), and Lycaste
hennisiana Kränzl. (1908). Schlechter added several
new Colombian orchids that he named after Hennis:
Stelis hennisiana Schltr., Maxillaria hennisiana
Schltr., Gongora hennisiana Schltr., and Acineta
hennisiana Schltr. Finally, Walter Sandt contributed
Stenorrhynchos hennisianum in 1928.
WilhElm KAlBrEyEr (1847–1912; collected 1877–
1912)
According to Hortus Veitchii, the Veitch family
history: “Guillermo Kalbreyer, a promising young
man, twenty-nine years of age, entered Messrs.
Veitchs’ service as a plant collector in 1876, and his
first trip was to the West Coast of Africa in search of
tropical flowering and foliage plants, very popular at
that time.” (Veitch 1906: 70).
Wilhelm Kalbreyer (Fig. 89) was born in the
German city of Hildesheim and did an apprenticeship
in gardening with Justus Ludewig von Uslar, who
owned a well-known plant nursery in the city. After
serving as his apprentice, he was engaged as an
assistant at the famous gardens of Herrenhausen, near
Hannover, where he worked under the direction of
Hermann Wendland (well-known to the reader for his
expedition to Central America in 1856). Wendland,
who soon discovered Kalbreyer’s talent, gave him
letters of recommendation, which allowed him to gain
his early experience in several important gardens until
in 1876, he was engaged by Messrs. James Veitch and
Sons in Chelsea (Anonymous 1912: 26). Thus, he
travelled for the first time to the tropics and collected
203
figure 89. Wilhelm Kalbreyer. In Hennis, 1912: 479.
in the mountains of Cameroon, returning to Chelsea in
1877 with a rich collection of plants, among them two
new orchid species described by Reichenbach in his
Orchideae Kalbreyerianae (Reichenbach 1878).
In October 1877, Veitch sent Kalbreyer to
Colombia on the first of several collecting expeditions
to that country. The village of Ocaña, in north-eastern
Colombia on the border with Venezuela formed by
the Eastern Cordillera, was chosen by Kalbreyer as
his headquarters and he returned to the same location
in July 1878. The third expedition to Colombia
was undertaken in 1879, but this time Kalbreyer
explored western Colombia, mainly the department of
Antioquía. This was his most successful expedition;
in the spring of 1879, Kalbreyer was back in England
carrying with him significant botanical treasures. His
last journey to Colombia under contract with Veitch
began in December 1880, and he reached Ocaña once
more in January 1881, when he sent orchids to Veitch.
He continued southwards through the departments
of Santander, Boyacá, and Cundinamarca to Bogotá
(Fig. 90), a city that would become his residence for
the remainder of his life. In June 1881, he travelled
to England and cancelled his contract with Veitch,
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figure 90. Panorama of Bogotá, ca. 1890. Unknown photographer.
returning immediately to Bogotá, where he established
a plant nursery which he named “La Flora”.
Only twice did Kalbreyer return to his native
Hildesheim: in 1888 when he married a lady from
Hannover with whom he returned to Bogotá and in
1908, to visit his only sister and his son, who studied
at the local highschool. He returned to Bogotá the
following year, and the Colombian government named
him Consul for the district of Hildesheim. His business
was managed in the meantime by the well-known
orchid collector Erich Bungeroth, whom we will read
later (Hennis 1912: 479–480).
Kalbreyer published two articles in the German
Deutsche Gärtner-Zeitung (Kalbreyer 1899, 1903). In
the first, he gave a brief account of the development
of “Orchidomania” in Germany and described several
of the showiest Colombian orchids. The second was
about the problems he had encountered establishing
his nursery in Bogotá, especially when trying to
acclimatize European plants to the Andean climate.
Reichenbach would describe further new orchid
species among Kalbreyer’s Colombian collections,
including Maxillaria kalbreyeri and Odontoglossum
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kalbreyeri (a hybrid between O. pescatorei and O.
luteopurpureum) (Fig. 91).
In 1920, Friedrich Kränzlin published a long list
of orchids collected by Kalbreyer in Colombia under
the title Orchidaceae Kalbreyerianae I. He dedicated
a number of them to their collector: Telipogon
kalbreyerianus,
Zygopetalum
kalbreyerianum,
Houlletia kalbreyeriana, Microstylis kalbreyeriana,
Oncidium
kalbreyerianum,
Ornithocephalus
kalbreyerianus, and Masdevallia kalbreyeri Rchb.f. ex
Kränzl. (Fig. 92).
Schlechter described Sobralia kalbreyeri (Fig. 93);
H. G. Hills and L. Garay followed respectively with
Dressleria kalbreyeri and Elleanthus kalbreyeri.
GustAv schmidtchEn (–?; collected ca. 1880)
In the words of Steve Manning (2010: 347), Gustav
Schmidtchen was one of the “shadowy figures” in the
history of orchidology. Very little is known about him.
The only information we have about Schmidtchen
comes from H. G. Reichenbach. In his description
of Restrepia falkenbergii, he wrote: “My recent
specimens were gathered by two fresh collectors,
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figure 91. Odontoglossum kalbreyeri Rchb.f. Drawing
of type by Reichenbach at the Oakes Ames Orchid
Herbarium, Harvard University Herbaria, #00102249.
figure 92. Masdevallia kalbreyeri Rchb.f. ex Kränzl.
as Masdevallia urceolaris Kraenzl. Photograph by
Lourens Grobler.
Messrs. Falkenberg and Schmidtchen. […] As to Mr.
Schmidtchen, from Dresden, he has just made his début.
Mr. F. Sander has kindly sent sketches of flowers, dried
specimens, some highly curious itinerary sketches, and
a living Restrepia, all evidences which speak highly
in favour of the young traveller, to whom I wish good
success, provided he is not yet tired of the career.
This, however, is a rare case. Usually, the traveller
loses the peace of mind necessary for domestic life,
preferring the adventurous risks of a nomadic career.”
(Reichenbach 1880a: 232). Reichenbach wrote some
10 months later in a commentary about Masdevallia
roezlii: “The plant that has now flowered was obtained
from Mr. F. Sander, hence it may have been collected
by Messrs. Klaboch, Schmidtchen, and Falkenberg,
two of whom fell as victims for the benefit of those
in the trade.” (Reichenbach 1880b: 778). Manning
(2010: 348) concluded that Schmidtchen died in 1880:
“as the Klaboch brothers were still alive, he could
only be referring to Schmidtchen and Falkenbergso both were now dead, just ten short months later.”
This, however, is not conclusive: Eduard Klaboch was
still alive at the time [Eduard lived until August 1915,
when he passed away in the Czech city of Smichov],
but his brother Franz had died the year before in
Mexico, on 24 January 1879, another victim of
yellow fever (see Anonymous 1879: 369). Falkenberg,
according to Sander (1880: 173), died in June 1880 on
the Caribbean island of St. Thomas. Therefore, one
would tend to believe that Franz Klaboch and Carl
Falkenberg were Reichenbach’s “two victims”, and
Gustav Schmidtchen, the sole survivor.
What became of Gustav Schmidtchen after
1880? Nothing else is known, except for Schlechter’s
words when he complained that Schmidtchen’s
considerable orchid collection “still lies undetermined
in Reichenbach’s herbarium in Vienna” (Schlechter
1924: 149). And further on, in the dedication of Stelis
schmidtchenii: “I am happy to dedicate this species to
Mr. G. Schmidtchen, whose merits in the exploration of
Colombia’s orchid flora have not yet been sufficiently
acknowledged.” (Schlechter 1924: 157). Both
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figure 93. Sobralia kalbreyeri Schltr. as Sobralia
sobralioides (Kränzl.) Garay. Specimen and drawing
by Pedro Ortiz.
expressions seem to indicate that Schmidtchen spent
a prolonged period collecting orchids in Colombia,
perhaps even during Schlechter’s time.
Schmidtchen collected chiefly for Frederick
Sander, ‘the Orchid King’, who confirmed this when
he wrote in 1888 of “our collectors Schmidtchen and
Hennis.” (Sander 1888); yet another indication that
Schmidtchen was still alive at that time. According
to Manning, he collected chiefly near the city of
Medellín in the department of Antioquia (Fig. 94), a
place that “seems to have been almost a rendezvous
for German plant collectors in the1880s.” (Manning
2010: 347).
Gustav Schmidtchen contributed to the
knowledge of the Colombian orchid flora by
collecting an important number of new species,
among them: Platystele schmidtchenii Schltr., Stelis
schmidtchenii Schltr., Elleanthus formosus Garay,
Telipogon radiatus Rchb.f., Epidendrum carautaense
Hágsater & L. Sánchez, Epidendrum schmidtchenii
Hágsater & E. Santiago (Fig. 95), Epidendrum
corallinum Hágsater, Masdevallia fasciata Rchb.f.
(Fig. 96), Restrepia falkenbergii Rchb.f., Telipogon
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figure 94. Junin bridge in Medellín (Antioquia), ca. 1900.
Unknown photographer.
figure 95. Herbarium label of Epidendrum schmidtchenii
Hágsater & E. Santiago. Natural History Museum,
Vienna, #W 0027141.
ossenbaCh & Jenny — Rudolf Schlechter’s South American orchids. IV
figure 96. Masdevallia fasciata Rchb.f. Unknown
photographer.
figure 98. K. Sonntag – Herbarium label from Colombia
(June 1888). National Natural History Museum, Paris,
specimen MNHN–P–P06725820.
schmidtchenii Rchb.f. ex Kränzl., and Masdevallia
schmidtchenii Kränzl. (Fig 97.)
KArl rEnsch (1837–1905) and K. sonntAG (–?;
collected 1888)
Karl Rensch, a school–teacher in the German
city of Eisleben, moved to Halle after finishing his
education. There he studied botany under Professor
Diederich Franz Leonhard von Schlechtendahl. In
1867 he was named director of the Berliner school in
the 101 district, which he held until his death.
A passionate plant collector, Rensch founded the
“Plant Exchange Club” of Berlin in the 1870s, which
was under his direction for several years. He formed
a rich herbarium in this position, complemented with
plants sent by other botanical collectors for distribution.
His collection encompassed plants from most tropical
floras (Ascherson & Retzdorff 1906).
Karl Rensch was responsible for the commercial
distribution of many exotic plants and, at some point,
207
figure 97. Masdevallia schmidtchenii Kränzl. as
Masdevallia mollossus Rchb.f. Photograph by A. Sijm.
came in contact with K. Sonntag (–?), an obscure
plant collector whom he engaged in collecting plants
in Colombia. Sonntag arrived in Colombia in 1888,
collecting (mainly in the department of Santander)
from June through August of that year. His herbarium
labels all bear the stamped inscription “comm. Rensch”
(“commissioned by Rensch”) (Fig. 98).
According to Ignaz Urban (1903: 59), in 1888,
the Berlin Botanical Garden received a collection of
73 Colombian species collected by K. Sonntag. The
Harvard University Herbaria holds a specimen of
Epidendrum ciliare L., allegedly collected a few years
earlier (1880) by K. Rensch in Jamaica. However,
Rensch either bought or traded this plant since he
never travelled outside Germany.
From collections in Africa by J.M. Hillebrandt
(whose plants had been distributed in Europe by
Rensch), a new orchid species, Nervilia renschiana
(Rchb.f.) Schltr. (Fig. 99), and Solanum renschii Vatke
in the Solanaceae were named in his honour.
Among Sonntag’s Colombian collections,
Rudolf Schlechter described one new orchid species,
Galeandra leptoceras (Fig. 100).
Erich BunGEroth (ca. 1850–1937; collected 1891–
1921)
“Among the Germans I was especially fond of
seventy-year-old Mr. Bungeroth, who had been for
forty years an orchid collector in South America and
had explored during the last ten years the “white spots”
on the map of the South American Andean states
under contract with well-known English nurseries. He
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figure 99. Nervilia renschiana (Rchb.f.) Schltr. Photograph
by Elke Faust.
figure 100. Galeandra leptoceras Schltr. Photograph by
Danny Lentz.
figure 101. Catasetum bungerothii N.E.Brown. Archives of
Rudolf Jenny.
figure 102. Catasetum bungerothii N.E.Brown. Type
specimen, Kew Botanic Garden, #K00588863.
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figure 105. Cattleya labiata Lindl. Unknown photographer.
figure 103. Coryanthes bungerothii Rolfe as Coryanthes
bruchmuelleri Rchb.f. Lindenia – Iconographie des
Orchidées, plate 244 (1890).
figure 104. Notylia bungerothii Rchb.f. Photograph by
Dalton Holland Baptista.
was in a very difficult situation: his noble patrons had
broken up all relations with him immediately after the
outbreak of the war.
“Bungeroth came often to the brewery to chat
with me since I was the only German who showed
an interest in botany, especially in his favorites, the
orchids. Sometimes, when we had a drink together, he
told me stories from his travels on the Casiquiare River,
this mysterious connection between the Orinoco, the
Río Negro and the Amazon. There, in the midst of the
tropical forest, he discovered the splendid Catasetum
bungerothii. Now he sat, poor as a beggar, dressed
like a Colombian peasant, in Bucaramanga. His only
income were 30 Dollars which he received monthly
from a rich German-American orchid enthusiast
from California” (Werner Hopp 1944: 29, about his
encounter with Erich Bungeroth around 1918).
Nothing is known about Bungeroth’s early years.
We first learn of him in 1886, when he collected
plants in the Amazon region for the Cowan Nursery
near Liverpool. He was to assist and receive botanical
training from Carl Kramer, a German plant collector
who lived in Manaus after years of travels through
Asia and Central America.
Bungeroth was later sent to Colombia, but due to
the revolution devastating that country was forced to
return to England. He offered his services to the Linden
firm and was sent to Venezuela, exploring the Orinoco
River for three years (Menezes 2002: 67). Apart from
Catasetum bungerothii N.E.Brown (Fig. 101–102),
Bungerfoth collected in Venezuela many other orchids
named in his honour, such as Coryanthes bungerothii
(Fig. 103), Notylia bungerothii (Fig. 104), Rodriguezia
bungerothii, and Oncidium bungerothii.
In 1889, Erich Bungeroth went again to Colombia.
After a few months, he started on an expedition that
would take him to Brazil, navigating the Amazon to
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figure 106. Cattleya rex O’Brien. In Reichenbachia, second series, vol. 2: plate 72 (1894)
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Peru. In the state of Pará he met a group of rubber
gatherers who revealed to him the existence of
“parasites” with beautiful large red flowers in the
forest of that northeastern state. So, it came about
those thousands of plants of Cattleya labiata Lindl.
(Fig. 105) collected in Pernambuco were sent by
Bungeroth to Europe, where they were grown as a
new species, called Cattleya warocqueana Linden.
(Menezes 2002: 69–70)
Erich Bungeroth was an important link in
Schlechter’s South American network. As we have
seen, he covered large territories during his botanical
expeditions and collected in Brazil, Venezuela and
Colombia before arriving in Peru. In 1921, in the
fourth volume of his series on the orchid floras of the
Andean states, Schlechter wrote: “Erich Bungeroth
made an important contribution to the exploration of
the orchid flora of Peru. After he had rediscovered
Cattleya labiata in 1890, he travelled on the Amazon
to Iquitos, then to Yurimaguas and Huallagua, and
then overland to Moyobamba. Here, he discovered
the new Cattleya rex O’Brien (Fig. 106). Trying to
find more plants of this species, he went on a long
excursion along the Río Mayo, however with little
success, although he discovered the new Oncidium
sanderae Rolfe (Fig. 107). In October 1892, he was
again in Yurimaguas and in his letters expresses the
hope to return finally to Europe. However, he shared
the fate of many other orchid collectors and was soon
defrauded by his patrons. He was told that most of his
deliveries had been damaged during transport; at the
same time, his orchids were offered on the market,
without mention of his name. Deeply disappointed,
Bungeroth soon left Peru. His contract with the Belgian
firm that had betrayed him so often was cancelled; he
had unfortunately similar experiences during his later
journeys through Venezuela and Colombia with other
European nurseries. ” (Schlechter 1921b: 10–11).
The demand for Cattleya rex was increasing and
the supply of new plants scarce. This moved German
nursery owner Robert Blossfeld (1882–1944) to plan,
together with his son Harry, a new expedition into the
Andean region where Bungeroth had collected the
first plants.
After studying botany at the University of Berlin,
Harry Blossfeld (1913–1976) left Germany before the
ascent of the Nazi party to the German government
211
figure 107. Oncidium sanderae Rolfe as Psychopsis
sanderae (Rolfe) Lückel & Braem. Photograph by I.
Rolando.
and took part in several botanical expeditions through
South America (Fig. 108). He established himself in
São Paulo and founded an orchid nursery in 1937.
It was from São Paulo in 1935 that Blossfeld
started on his expedition in search of Bungeroth’s
famous Cattleya. Erich Bungeroth, at the time living
in Bucaramanga, Colombia, took an interest in this
expedition. Being unable to travel with Blossfeld
because of his advanced age, he supplied him with all
his notes, sketches, and maps from his first expedition
decades before. Harry Blossfeld travelled mainly
by airplane but still faced enormous difficulties. He
managed, however, to collect 800 plants in about two
months. The plants were shipped to São Paulo and,
after a long journey through the Panama Canal, arrived
at their destination, 40% of them having unfortunately
perished on the way. (Maatsch, 1976: 37–38).
hErBErt huntinGton smith (1851–1919; collected
1898–1902)
On 22 March 1919, Herbert Huntington Smith
(Fig. 109), Curator of the Alabama Museum of Natural
History, was walking to work when he was hit by a
freight train. Smith’s deafness, magnified by a recent
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figure 108. Harry Blossfeld in the province of Salta, Argentina (1938). Archives of the Cactus and Succulent Society of
America.
figure 109. Herbert Huntington Smith. Unknown
photographer. In The Nautilus, 1919–1920.
LANKESTERIANA 21(2). 2021. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2021.
bout of flu, was the cause of the accident. The tragic
spot on the University of Alabama campus was known
for years afterwards amongst students and staff as
“Smith’s Crossing”.
An amateur conchologist, Smith was born in
Manlius, New York. He showed an interest in natural
history from an early age, a subject in which he
graduated from Cornell University in 1872. As a
student, Smith had the opportunity to be part of the
famous Morgan Expedition to Brazil in 1870 (named
after one of its sponsors, Col. Edwin B. Morgan),
accompanying its leader, Smith’s professor Charles
Frederick Hartt. The expedition explored the basin of
the Tapajós River in the state of Pará and was mainly
of a geological nature. This encounter with the tropics
would act as a constant attraction to bring Smith back
to Brazil in the following years in many capacities.
Smith would later concentrate on studying insects
and molluscs, of which he collected thousands of
specimens. A successful collector and preserver, he
assembled extensive collections found in many of
the world’s natural history museums (Fig. 110–111).
Besides the zoological material, Smith also collected
ethnographic and botanical material, completing
approximately 500,000 natural history specimens
during his lifetime.
ossenbaCh & Jenny — Rudolf Schlechter’s South American orchids. IV
213
figure 110. H. Smith herbarium label (New York Botanical
Garden).
figure 111. H. Smith herbarium label (National Natural
History Museum, Paris).
Smith went to Brazil in 1874 to collect the insects
and molluscs of the Amazon and, in 1876 was invited
by Hartt to form part of the Geological Commission
of the Empire of Brazil. Smith stayed with the
commission for almost a year, exploring the valleys of
the Amazon and Tapajós (Kunzler et al. 2011).
Smith departed to the United States in 1881 and,
after his marriage to Amelia Woolworth, returned to
Brazil, where they lived until 1886. Smith signed a
contract with the National Museum of Brazil, under
which he was to explore the interior of the country
to collect specimens of natural history. The contract
was extended several times, and Smith and his wife
travelled widely. Their explorations took them to
Paraguay and Matto Grosso. Smith’s journal of this
adventure was published years later under Do Rio de
Janeiro a Cuyabá: notas de um naturalista (Smith,
1922).
Smith collected in Mexico in 1889 and he was
then commissioned by the Royal Society to collect
in the West Indies (1889–1895) (Clapp 1919,
Holland 1919).
After a short time as Curator of the Carnegie
Museum, Smith was sent to Colombia, where he
would stay from 1898 to 1902, collecting for the
American Museum of Natural History. It was during
this expedition that Smith dedicated himself to the
collection of plants. In his collections are many new
figure 112. Type of Epidendrum macroceras Schltr.
National Natural History Museum, Paris.
orchid species, many of which Schlechter described in
his orchid flora of Colombia (Schlechter 1920). Among
these, the great German orchidologist determined
as new to science Pleurothallis leptantha, Physurus
procerus, Pleurothallis schistopetala, Scaphyglottis
sanctae-martae, Epidendrum macroceras (Fig. 112),
Govenia platyglossa (Fig. 113), Habenaria smithii,
Elleanthus smithii, Prescottia smithii, Pleurothallis
smithii, Epidendrum smithii and Sarcoglottis smithii.
Other orchids collected by H.H. Smith in Colombia
include Habenaria petalodes Lindl., Ponthieva diptera
Linden & Rchb.f., Ponthieva racemosa (Walter) C.Mohr,
Pleurothallis setigera Lindl. (Fig. 114), Epidendrum
paniculatum Ruiz & Pav., Scaphyglottis behrii (Rchb.f.)
Benth. & Hook.f. ex Hemsl., Trichopilia subulata (Sw.)
Rchb.f., Odontoglossum nevadense Rchb.f., Lockhartia
pallida Rchb.f., Sobralia violacea Linden ex Lindl.,
Maxillaria miniata (Lindl.) L.O. Williams, and Sacoila
lanceolata (Aublet) Garay.
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figure 114. Pleurothallis setigera Schltr. as Muscarella
zephyrina (Rchb.f.) Luer. Photograph by Andreas Kay.
figure 113. Govenia platyglossa Schltr. as Govenia superba
Lindl. Edwards’s Botanical Register, volume 21 plate
1795.
figure 115. Langlassé herbarium label, MNHN (Isotype of
Epidendrum eugenii Schltr.)
In 1902, in poor health, Smith and his wife
returned to the United States, where he resumed his
position as Curator of the Carnegie Museum. Soon,
however, and looking for a warmer climate, Smith
moved to Alabama, where he was hired as Curator of
the Alabama Natural History Museum in 1910.
expedition to Colombia from September 1899 to
January 1900. He found death from yellow fever in the
coastal town of Buenaventura, from where he shipped
his last consignment of plants to Europe. (MacVaugh,
1951: 167). As we will see, Langlassé’s expedition was
at least in part quite successful. Among his Colombian
botanical specimens, at least a dozen new orchids were
described by Cogniaux and Schlechter, not counting a
critical number of Orchidaceae he collected in Mexico
from 1888 1889, before his short-lived South American
adventure. His collections can be found in several of
the most important European herbaria, but mainly at
the National Natural History Museum, Paris (Fig. 115).
Little is known of Langlassé’s young years.
He was the son of a gardener who lived near Paris.
From around 1892 to 1895, he travelled to Ceylon
[Sri Lanka], Cochinchina, Singapore, Borneo, and
the Philippines. These journeys were sponsored by
EuGènE lAnGlAssé (ca. 1865–1900; collected 1898–
1900)
“The results of this second expedition, so
unfortunately ended, will at the end prove not to be
very important. Many dry plants have suffered from
humidity and are mouldy; as for living plants, packed
in moss in humid conditions, the majority has perished.
We could only save several Orchids and a few Aroids
which began to sprout and among which we will find,
hopefully, some interesting types.” So wrote M. Micheli
(1900: 415) about the end of Eugène Langlassé’s
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215
figure 116. Alexandre Godefroy–Lebeuf. Archives of
Rudolf Jenny.
figure 117. Marc Micheli. Archives of Rudolf Jenny.
Alexandre Godefroy-Lebeuf (1852–1903) (Fig. 116)
of Paris, a wealthy horticulturist interested in tropical
plants. After returning to France in the summer of 1895
and until 1897, shortly before travelling to America,
Langlassé wrote several short articles in the Revue
Horticole, all related to some aspect of the vegetation
of Southeast Asia.
Early in February 1898, Langlassé left France
for Mexico, this time under contract with the French
mining company Compagnie de Inguarán, to explore
the mineral resources of this Mexican region. Cosponsored by Marc Micheli (1844–1902) (Fig. 117),
the celebrated botanist and horticulturist of Geneva, he
also made important collections all along the Gulf of
Mexico, the eastern slopes of the Sierra Madre. After
this, and through a recommendation by Eduoard André,
the French horticulturist who had travelled extensively
through Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru some 25 years
before, he prepared to travel to Colombia.
Langlassé followed André’s advice and from
Panama took a boat to the small village of Tumaco,
on Colombia’s Pacific coast, where he arrived in the
second half of July 1899. André unwittingly sent
Langlassé to his death: no other region in Colombia
was so heavily infested with yellow fever as the
coastal strip between Panama (which was still part of
Colombia) and Buenaventura.
Langlassé travelled to Tumaco in the erroneous
assumption that he would find a French consulate in the
village. Thus he had to arrange to have his funds sent
from France through the Chilean consul in Barbacoas,
about 165 kilometers away, a complicated process that
hindered him during his whole stay in Colombia.
Langlassé began his exploration of Colombia by
a trip to Barbacoas, continuing then to Altaquer (Fig.
118), a “miserable village composed of eighteen
houses of sordid aspect, with 60 inhabitants, ugly, lazy
and a hundred times less interesting than the savages I
had seen before” (André 1999: 366–367).
From Altaquer he explored the mountains to
the southwest, at elevations between 1400 and 1700
meters, close to the Ecuadorean border (MacVaugh,
1959: 170). As he wrote to Micheli from Tumaco on 14
September 1899, he collected 33 living plants (mostly
orchids, aroids, and bromeliads) in these mountains,
which he shipped via Panama. After exploring the
rivers Mira and Nulpe, Langlassé travelled west over
the mountains to Cali and Popayán. It was there that he
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figure 118. Church of Altaquer, ca. 1876, after a sketch by Edouard André in his L’Amérique Équinoxiale, p. 366.
collected most of the over 100 herbarium specimens
known from his Colombian expedition.
A letter to Micheli written from Popayán and dated
16 November was Langlassé’s final communication
before his death. In this, he discussed his plans for the
following weeks.
Several orchids were named in honour of
Langlassé, the first being Stanhopea langlasseana
by A. Cogniaux (Figs. 119–120). “At the request of
M. Micheli, I name this species in memory of the
courageous and unfortunate collector Langlassé, who
found it, in September 1899, on a mountain to the
S.E of Altaquezo [= Altaquer] in the valley of the Río
Mira, at about 1700 m altitude” (Cogniaux 1901, in the
protologue to Stanhopea langlasseana).
In his orchid flora of Colombia, Schlechter
dedicated to Langlassé Scelochilus langlassei (Fig.
121), Isochilus langlassei (Fig. 122), Maxillaria
langlassei (Fig. 123), Pleurothallis langlassei, Stelis
langlassei, Cyclopogon eugenii, Epidendrum eugenii,
and Stelis eugenii. Other new species collected by
Langlassé and described by Schlechter are Epidendrum
ionodesme, E. melinanthum, and Maxillaria plicata.
LANKESTERIANA 21(2). 2021. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2021.
otto BEyrodt (1870–1923; Imported orchids into
Germany ca. 1906–1917)
As one of the founders of the German Society of
Orchidology, Otto Beyrodt (Fig. 124) became one of
the leading orchid growers in Germany in the first
decade of the 20th century.
Beyrodt was born in Erfurt. Following his father’s
footsteps, he began an apprenticeship in gardening
at the Olberg firm in Dresden and expanded his
knowledge by travelling as a young man to England,
then to Belgium, and finally to the United States. He
returned to Germany in 1893 and in 1900, after a time
spent managing his brother’s farm, decided to establish
himself by building a modern nursery in Marienfelde,
a suburb of Berlin (Fig. 125).
“Already in its first year, Beyrodt’s nursery
had around 50,000 orchids, among them 20,000
Odontoglossum (especially O. crispum), 10,000
Paphiopedilum, 3000 Oncidium, 15,000 Cattleya,
500 Vanda coerulea, and a number of other species,
varieties, and hybrids.” (Anonymous 1976: 3) Some
years later, in 1907, the local garden club visited
Beyrodt’s nursery. It was then reported that thousands
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217
figure 119. Type specimen of Stanhopea langlasseana
Cogn. National Botanical Garden of Belgium, Brussels.
figure 120. Stanhopea langlasseana Cogn. as Stanhopea
tricornis Lindl. Archives of Rudolf Jenny.
figure 121. Scelochilus langlassei Schltr. Photographed by
Sociedad Colombiana de Orquideología.
figure 122. Isochilus langlassei Schltr. as Isochilus linearis
(Jacq.) R.Br. Photograph by Luis Filipe Varella.
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figure 123. Maxillaria langlassei Schltr. as Maxillaria
longissima Lindl. Photograph by Michael Graupe.
of orchids were under cultivation, mainly for the
production of cut-flowers; among them were 25,000
Odontoglossum crispum, 50,000 Cattleyas of different
species, 10,000 Oncidium, and as many Cypripedium,
Laelia, Phalaenopsis, etc. …“ (Amelung 1907: 436).
“In recent times […] numerous Colombian
orchids have been found, of which no specimens are
known which were collected in the wild, but only
inflorescences of plants grown in European collections.
Besides the already mentioned English firms,
several German gardening enterprises have gained a
reputation for importing novelties from Colombia,
such as Wilhelm Hennis in Hildesheim, Paul Wolter
in Magdeburg, and Otto Beyrodt in Marienfelde. The
author wants to express his gratitude to these firms for
having supplied him with abundant material of several
new species.” (Schlechter 1920: 16).
New orchid species were described among Beyrodt’s
imports from several South American countries. So,
we have from Brazil Oncidium beyrodtianum Schltr.
(Fig. 126), from Colombia Gongora beyrodtiana
Schltr. (Fig. 127), Acineta beyrodtiana Schltr. (Fig.
128) and Pleurothallis beyrodtiana Kränzl., and from
Peru Cochlioda beyrodtiana Schltr.
P. BAumAnn & m. mAdEro (–?; collected 1909–1911)
“It shall finally be mentioned that through the
mediation of one of my acquaintances, commercial
traveller P. Baumann, a Colombian orchid collector,
M. Madero prepared in the years 1909–1911 an
orchid herbarium especially for me. I received the
first consignment in the year 1911. It contained many
interesting things and was well prepared. A second
consignment was announced shortly after the outbreak
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figure 124. Otto Beyrodt. Die Gartenwelt, 1923.
of the World War; it must have been lost, like so many
other things, on its way to Europe. Since the first
shipment promised so much, with several hundred
numbers, the loss of the second was an especially hard
blow.” (Schlechter 1920: 16).
Baumann is lost in history and only remembered
in two orchids named by Schlechter in his honour:
Epidendrum baumannianum (Fig. 129) and Maxillaria
baumanniana (Fig. 130), both collected by Madero.
As for Madero, nothing else was known about
him until a recent communication from Colombian
researcher and orchid conservationist Luis Eduardo
Mejía brought a small ray of light into the mystery.
During research into the export of egret feathers,
and working through the papers of a famous character –
an exporter of gold, Indian artifacts, orchids, shrunken
heads, feathers, and other things – whose name was
Leocadio María Arango, Luis Eduardo Mejía found
several receipts for payments made to Mr. Madero.
He had sold to Arango orchids from the department
of Cauca. There were other receipts for plants from
Antioquía and a receipt by Mr. Madero paying Mr.
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219
figure 125. Beyrodt residence and nursery in Marienfelde. In Die Orchidee, 2013, vo. 64(4): 298.
figure 126. Oncidium beyrodtianum Schltr. as Oncidium
bifolium Sims. R. Warner, Select Orchidaceous Plants,
plate 5.
figure 127. Gongora beyrodtiana Schltr. as Gongora
scaphephorus Rchb.f. & Warsc. Unknown photographer.
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figure 128. Acineta beyrodtiana Schltr. Photograph by
Ecuagenera.
figure 129. Epidendrum baumannianum Schltr. Photograph
by Diego Bogarín.
figure 130. Maxillaria baumanniana Schltr. (=Sauvetrea
alpestris (Lindl.) Szlach. Photograph by Ecuagenera.
LANKESTERIANA 21(2). 2021. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2021.
Arango for the shipment of botanical specimens
to Germany, to the “classifier Rudolf Schlechter”
(“classifier” probably meaning ¨taxonomist ¨).
Luis Eduardo Mejía also found a short reference
to Madero in the Municipal Archives of the village
of Pitalito Huila, near San Agustín. He is mentioned
as being fined for quarreling in a brothel, and he is
referred to as “the plant collector of the Germans”
(Luis Eduardo Mejía, pers. comm. 10 April 2020).
Mejía refers here to Locadio María Arango Uribe
(1831–1918), a merchant, miner, and banker from
the city of Medellín, the capital of the department of
Antioquia. A wealthy member of Medellín’s ‘high
society’, he amassed a collection of natural history
objects, ranging from mineralogy and ethnology
to zoology and botany, which constitutes today an
important part of the collection of the Museum of the
University of Antioquia.
M. Madero, from the little information we have
about his life, was probably a professional collector,
not only of plants but also of zoological specimens.
One can expect that his collecting of orchids for
Schlechter was chiefly commercial. Notwithstanding,
Madero undoubtedly had a good knowledge of the
orchids of his country and a keen eye for novelties.
Among his collections, Schlechter described no less
than five new orchid genera and 175 new species. Of
these, almost half still retain their original names.
Madero’s types were all destroyed during the
bombing of the Berlin herbarium in 1943. However,
Ames financed the drawing and flower analysis of some
30 of these types, all made under the supervision of
Schlechter personally. These are kept today at the Oakes
Ames Orchid Herbarium (Fig. 131–132). Madero’s
new orchid genera were Porroglossum (Fig. 133),
Cyrtoglottis, Anthosiphon, Caucaea, and Sphyrastylis.
Among his new species, Schlechter dedicated
a total of 11 to Madero: Aa maderoi, Cyclopogon
maderoi, Encyclia maderoi (Fig. 134), Epidendrum
maderoi, Habenaria maderoi, Maxillaria maderoi,
Odontoglossum maderoi, Oncidium maderoi, Pogonia
maderoi, Psilochilus maderoi, and Stelis maderoi.
M. Madero surely deserves to be known better. A
detailed biography -as far as this is possible- and an
account of his life as a plant collector are presently
underway, hopefully with the collaboration of
renowned Colombian researchers.
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221
figure 131. Cranichis stictophylla Schltr. Drawing of type.
Oakes Ames Orchid Herbarium #26831.
figure 132. Campylocentrum colombianum Schltr. Drawing
of type. Oakes Ames Orchid Herbarium #26788.
figure 133. Porroglossum colombianum Schltr. as
Porroglossum mordax (Rchb.f.) Luer. Photograph by
Marni Turkel
figure 134. Encyclia maderoi Schltr., is a synonym of
Encyclia replicata (Lindl. & Paxton) Schltr.
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figure 135. Pleurothallis schnitteri Schltr. as Pleurothallis
phalangifera (C.Presl.) Rchb.f. Photograph by S.
Manning.
figure 136. Stelis oxypetala Schltr. Photograph by the
Species Identification Task Force.
richArd EcKArd schnittEr (–?; collected 1920–
1922)
Volume II of Schlechter’s Orchideenfloren der
Südamerikanischen Kordillerestaaten (Colombia), was
published on 31 January1920. A few months later, he
began to receive, at irregular intervals, small packages
LANKESTERIANA 21(2). 2021. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2021.
figure 137. Epidendrum peperomia Schltr. Photograph by
Orchi.
with dried orchids from a German horticulturist who
had emigrated years earlier to Colombia: Richard
Schnitter Eckhard, or simply Ricardo Schnitter, as he
was known in his adoptive country. “I received from
Mr. R. Schnitter in Bogotá during the past months
several small packages with dried orchids, which he
had collected in the surroundings of Bogotá, the capital
city of Colombia” (Schlechter 1921: 527).
Among Schnitter’s orchids Schlechter found
and described a few new species, including
Stelis schnitteri, Pleurothallis cundinamarcae,
Pleurothallis platycardium, Pleurothallis pulvinipes,
Pleurothallis schnitteri (Fig. 135), and Epidendrum
schnitteri. All these had been collected between April
and August 1920.
As in so many other cases, little is known about
the life of Richard Schnitter. He left Germany in a new
wave of emigration following the disaster of World
War I and Germany’s hopeless economic situation.
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223
them Stelis cundinamarcae, Stelis decipiens, Stelis
oxipetala (Fig. 136), Stelis verecunda, Lepanthes
schnitteri, Pleurothallis bogotensis, Pleurothallis
nasuta, Pleurothallis nutans, Epidendrum peperomia
(Fig. 137), Epidendrum strictum, Maxillaria
camaridioides, Maxillaria schnitteri, and Dichaea
trachysepala.
A grandson of Schnitter, Gonzalo Ruíz Schnitter,
collected the type of Epidendrum pomecense Hágsater
in 1996 in the neighbourhood of Boyacá, in the
company of Clara Lucía Patiño de Ruíz, his wife, Eric
Hágsater and Father Pedro Ortiz Valdivieso.
figure 138. Arnold Schultze-Rhonhof. Archives of Rudolf
Jenny.
After his arrival in Bogotá, he is frequently mentioned
as a well-known horticulturist. A Presidential Decree
of 9 December 1914 created the ‘National Institute for
Agriculture and Veterinary Science’. In March 1915,
the first academic staff was named, comprising 10
professors, and among them Richard Schnitter, who
was appointed to the Chair of Horticulture. Around
the time he started collecting orchids for Schlechter,
Schnitter was mentioned as a member of the staff of
the National School of Agronomy; some years later,
in 1931, he arrived at what was probably his final
destination, for a few years occupying the position of
Agricultural Expert in the Caribbean archipelago of
San Andrés and Providencia.
It was not until 1924, in his Beiträge zur
Orchideenkunde
von
Colombia,
under
III.
Orchidaceae novae vel rariores collectorum variorum,
that Schlechter comes to speak of Schnitter again. He
describes here a number of new Colombian orchids,
received “mostly from Mrs. R. Schnitter and H. Hopf”
(of whom we will read later) (Schlechter 1924: 148).
Thirteen additional species were described from
Schnitter’s collections, again all from Bogotá, among
Arnold schultzE–rhonhof (1875–1948; collected
1920–1928 [Colombia] / 1934–1939 [Ecuador])
“In the morning of 5 September an English airplane
flew above us. In the afternoon, we were about 300
sea miles southwest of Tenerife, in the Canary Islands,
when we were stopped by an English cruiser. Flag
order: heave to, stop, set out boats! We were allowed
to take only the most necessary personal items and
then our little birds. Everything was over in a matter of
minutes. Twelve cannon rounds sank our ship with all
our belongings, above all our valuable collections. We
are now poor as paupers!” (Arnold Schultze-Rhonhof,
in a letter to his relatives, shortly after being released
from an internment camp in Dakar. - In Zeckau &
Zischler 2010: 240).
Arnold Schultze-Rhonhof (Fig. 138) was born in
Cologne and was the son of an officer of the German
Army. After a short time at the University of Göttingen,
where he took courses in Botany, Schultze-Rhonhof
enlisted in the German Army in 1896 and was soon
commissioned as an artillery officer. After several
expeditions to Cameroon in the service of the German
Colonial Office, he left the Army in 1906 due to
serious health problems. Back in Germany, he studied
Geography and Natural Sciences at the University of
Bonn. From 1910 to 1911, he went again to Africa,
this time as part of the Central-African Expedition
led by Adolf Friedrichs, Duke of Mecklenburg. In
the company of botanist Gottfried Wilhelm Johannes
Midbraed of the Botanical Museum in Berlin, he
collected botanical and zoological specimens on
the lower Congo, in southern Cameroon, and on the
islands of Fernándo Poo and Annobon, off the coast
of Guinea.
LANKESTERIANA 21(2). 2021. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2021.
224
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figure 139. Puerto Colombia, ca. 1920. Unknown photographer.
figure 140. Páramo de Sumapaz. Unknown photographer.
LANKESTERIANA 21(2). 2021. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2021.
ossenbaCh & Jenny — Rudolf Schlechter’s South American orchids. IV
225
figure 141. Sobralia odorata Schltr. Photograph by David
Haelterman.
figure 142. Epidendrum arnoldii Schltr. Illustration by
Constanza Rodríguez.
figure 143. Schomburgkia schultzei Schltr. Photograph by
Dorothy Potter Barnett.
figure 144. Sievekingia rhonhofiae Mansf. Photograph by
Rudolf Jenny.
After World War I and the loss of all German
colonies, Schultze-Rhondorf went to South America
in 1920, disembarking on 14 July in Puerto Colombia,
near Barranquilla (Fig. 138). He worked in Colombia
as a topographer, geologist, and agronomist and was
active in writing articles against the devastation of the
tropical forests (Anonymous 1950: 271–272).
“In his condition as researcher and expert for new
oil fields in the eastern parts of the country, Schultze,
during his extensive expeditions, had the opportunity
to gather a small but very interesting orchid collection
for me.” (Schlechter 1924: 124) This expedition, the
most important for the purposes of this article, took
Schultze to the region of the páramo of Sumapaz
(Fig. 140), on the border between the department of
Cundinamarca and the old Territory of San Martín,
to the headwaters of the Orinoco, and further east
to the lowlands of the rivers Meta and Orinoco.
LANKESTERIANA 21(2). 2021. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2021.
226
LANKESTERIANA
figure 145. Stanhopea annulata Mans. Photograph by Orchi.
figure 146. Pleurothallis hopfiana Schltr. Photograph by
Maria and Grzegorz Garbuzowie.
figure 147. Pleurothallis bogotensis Schltr. as Pleurothallis
phalangifera (C. Presl.) Rchb. f. Archives of Rudolf
Jenny.
Unfortunately, a bout of malaria forced Schultze to
cut short his expedition and to return to Bogotá.
Arnold Schultze’s orchid collections were made,
with few exceptions, in the Colombian department
of Cundinamarca. They were described by Rudolf
Schlechter under the title Orchidaceae Schultzeanae
(Schlechter 1924: 125–147). A large proportion of orchid
species were described as new to science by Schlechter
from this collection: Habenaria schultzei, Epistephium
lamprophyllum, Sobralia odorata (Fig. 141), S.
schultzei, Elleanthus leiocaulon, Epidendrum anitae,
E. arnoldii (Fig. 142), E. euchroma, Schomburgkia
elata, S. schultzei (Fig. 143), Mormodes schultzei,
Polycycnis acutiloba, Xylobium modestum, Lindleyella
saxicola, Maxillaria schultzei, M. sulfurea, Camaridium
quercicolum, and Odontoglossum schultzei.
Arnold Schultze-Rhonhof returned to Germany in
1928. After a short rest, he left again in 1929 on an
entomological expedition to the Congo, and then in
1931 to study the flora of the Balearic Islands. In the
last months of 1934, with his wife Hertha, he started
on his last long journey, this time to Ecuador, with the
sole purpose of making botanical and entomological
collections. After a short period in the highlands, they
turned to the rain forests on the Pacific coast between
the Pastaza River and Napo.
In the spring of 1939, having completed their
collections, the Schulze-Rhonhofs started on their way
home, travellling on the Putumayo and Amazon Rivers
to Pará in northwestern Brazil. Here they embarked in
the last days of August on the steam-ship Inn. Their fate
was described in Schultze’s letter that was mentioned
at the beginning of these lines.
All botanical collections, among them presumably
many orchids, were lost. The exceptions were a few
specimens sent for determination to Rudolf Mansfeld
from Ecuador; all of these were destroyed during
the bombing of the Berlin Museum in 1943. He
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ossenbaCh & Jenny — Rudolf Schlechter’s South American orchids. IV
published two of these specimens sent to Mansfeld
as new species: Sievekingia rhonhofiae (Fig. 144) and
Stanhopea annulata (Fig. 145).
After seeing their scientific harvest of 5 years sink
into the Atlantic, Arnold and Hertha Schultze-Rhonhof
were taken to Dakar, prisoners of the French Army.
However, they were released shortly after that through
Théodore Monod’s intervention, the famous French
explorer of western Africa.
They moved to the city of Funchal, on the
Portuguese island of Madeira, never returning to
Germany. Arnold Schultze-Rhonhof dedicated the
next years to his literary hobbies, writing about his
travels and preparing numerous pencil drawings and
watercolors that were greatly appreciated when shown
at an exhibition in 1946. Meanwhile, he earned his
living as an expert in agricultural pests and diseases.
He passed away in Funchal on 22 August 1948.
hErmAnn hoPf (–?; collected 1900–ca. 1919–1921)
As mentioned above, Hermann Hopf came to
Bogotá in 1900 as a collector for the Hennis nurseries
in Hildesheim. A catalogue of plants received by
Hennis in the year 1907 mentions that he received from
Mr. Hopf in Colombia 2500 Cattleya schroederae,
2000 Cattleya trianae, 5000 Odontoglossum crispum,
1000 Cattleya gigas var. ‘Sanderiana’, and plants of
C. gigas und C. aurea. However, there were no new
species among Hopf’s collections of these years.
Nothing could be found about Hopf in the years
following; he presumably returned to Germany at the
outbreak of WWI.
He is heard of again in 1919, when he presented a
claim to the Colombian Post Service in Barranquilla
for excessive shipping charges for two packages
posted to a Mr. Ferdinand Hopf, in Germany. He then
must have moved to Bogotá, since in 1924 Schlechter
described several new orchid species, which, with no
exception, are labeled as collected “in the department
of Cundinamarca, in the surroundings of Bogotá.”
The collection dates are invariably 1920 or 1921.
They are described in Schlechter’s “Contributions
to the orchid flora of Colombia” in the third chapter
entitled “Orchidaceae novae vel rariores collectorum
variorum” (Schlechter 1924: 148–183).
Hermann Hopf’s new orchid species were:
Elleanthus bogotensis, Pleurothallis belocardia,
227
figure 148. Schlechter’s herbarium label of Pityphyllum
amesianum. Oakes Ames Orchid Herbarium #22320.
P. hopfiana (Fig. 146), P. bogotensis (Fig. 147),
Epidendrum bogotense, E. hopfianum, and
Pachyphyllum bryophytum.
WErnEr hoPP (1887 –?) And sAntiAGo ArévAlo (–?;
collected 1921–1923)
In a letter from Berlin dated 26 September 1922,
Rudolf Schlechter wrote to Oakes Ames: “Today you
have got your birthday, I wish to show you that I have
been thinking of you and therefore send you […] a little
thing that, I hope, will give you certain pleasure and
show you that you can always be sure of my cooperation
in all your work. This time it is a representative of one
of my new genera, Pityphyllum, of which I found a very
characteristic new species in the Colombian collection
of Mr. Hopp […] So please accept this simply as a token
of my esteem and a sign that I have not forgotten the
day.” (from the correspondence files of Oakes Ames,
Harvard University, 2018).
With the dedication of Pityphyllum amesianum
(Fig. 148), Schlechter simultaneously introduced
Werner Hopp to the orchid world. Werner Hopp,
a young German civil engineer, came to South
America for the first time in 1910. In 1914 he made
two failed attempts to return to Germany, but WWI
forced him to wait until 1919 when he could finally
find a ship to carry him back across the Atlantic. In
the meantime, he worked in Ecuador, from 1915 to
1917, at the Siemens-Schukert Works in Quito, and
then until 1918 in Colombia as chief engineer at the
Clausen brewery in Bucaramanga. Once back home
in 1919, he soon became disappointed by the difficult
economic circumstances in Germany and began
planning to return to South America. It was then, in
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228
LANKESTERIANA
figure 149. Tunja street, in the city of Pasto, ca. 1920. Unknown photographer.
figure 150. Werner Hopp in Peru, ca. 1932. In the
background the Misti Volcano. In Hopp, 1944.
LANKESTERIANA 21(2). 2021. © Universidad de Costa Rica, 2021.
May 1920, that he made the acquaintance of Rudolf
Schlechter. “As I found out that Mr. Hopp was not
only highly qualified in his profession but also showed
great interest in natural sciences, I asked him to collect
herbarium specimens of orchids for me during his stay
in South America. His response was positive, and it
soon became evident that he had prepared himself
intensively not only by studying collecting methods
and the preparation of herbarium specimens but in
becoming familiar with the main Colombian orchid
genera” (Schlechter 1924: 5).
Hopp arrived in Bogotá and, during the first
months, explored the area around the city. Shortly
after that, he was contracted to direct the construction
work of a large hydroelectric project near the city
of Pasto (Fig. 149) to the southwest of Bogotá, near
the Ecuadorian border. He would stay there for the
next two years, using his little free time to continue
collecting orchids and butterflies, his second interest.
ossenbaCh & Jenny — Rudolf Schlechter’s South American orchids. IV
229
figure 151. Stanhopea hoppii Schltr. as Stanhopea
jenischiana F. Kramer ex Rchb.f.
figure 152. Houlletia clarae Schltr. as Houlletia sanderi
Rolfe. Phograph by Hans-Gerhardt Seeger.
figure 153. Diothonaea arevaloi Schltr. as Epidendrum
arevaloi (Schltr.) Hágsater. Photograph by Jay Pfahl.
figure 154. Rodriguezia arevaloi Schltr. Photograph by
Laurens Grobler.
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LANKESTERIANA
230
Wanting to explore this large region in-depth, he
engaged a Colombian plant collector named Santiago
Arévalo, an experienced field man, having been in the
past the guide to several other expeditions.
Arévalo and Hopp went as far as the department of
Chocó and to the ridge of the mountains overlooking
Colombia’s Pacific Coast. Schlechter would later
write about Santiago Arévalo: “We have to thank him
for his contribution to the scientific results of Hopp’s
research” (Schlechter 1924: 6). Werner Hopp left
Colombia in 1923 for Peru to lead maintenance work
on a hydroelectric plant in Arequipa (Fig. 150). After
a short trip to Germany in 1928, Hopp returned to
Ecuador to work in Guayaquil in 1930. He then began
extensive travels to the Amazon (see his narrative of
1944), collected for several German museums, and
was engaged as a zoologist at the Goeldi Museum in
Belém from 1934 to 1936.
Werner Hopp worked from 1936 to 1938 as an
engineer in different positions in São Paulo and Buenos
Aires. Finally, in 1939 he returned “to a mighty and
greater Germany”, as he wrote (Hopp 1944: v). He would
never cross the Atlantic again. In 1957, he published a
narrative about his travels and plant collecting in South
America, under the title Blütenzauber der Orchideen
(‘Magic of the orchid flowers’).
Schlechter described Hopp’s and Arevalo’s
orchid collections in 1924 in Orchidaceae Hoppianae
(Schlechter 1924: 5–123). A total of 123 new orchid
species were described. We list here only those
dedicated by Schlechter to Hopp: Sobralia hoppii,
Elleanthus hoppii, Microstylis hoppii, Masdevallia
hoppii, Stelis hoppii, S. werneri, Pleurothallis
hoppii, P. werneri, Epidendrum werneri, Stanhopea
hoppii (Fig. 151), Maxillaria hoppii, Cryptocentrum
hoppii, Odontoglossum hoppii, Oncidium hoppii,
Sphyrastylis hoppii, Telipogon hoppii, and Houlletia
clarae (dedicated to Clara Hopp, Hopp’s mother)
(Fig. 152) and to Santiago Arévalo: Stelis arevaloi,
Pleurothallis arevaloi, Diothonaea arevaloi (Fig.
153), Epidendrum sculptum var. arevaloi, and
Rodriguezia arevaloi (Fig. 154).
The following chapters will continue with
biographical information on Schlechter’s orchid
collectors in their principal collecting areas, first
following South America’s Pacific Coast to Ecuador
and Peru (chapter V), then continuing to Bolivia,
Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay (chapter VI
and final).
aCknowledgements. Luis Eduardo Mejía provided valuable
information on the life of plant collector M. Madero in
Colombia. Mark Budworth, as always, made an essential
contribution through his philological revision of the text.
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