Cont'd …

Sooner or later the amateur orchid grower experiences the desire to see his “babies” in their natural habitat. His journey, undertaken in a spirit of serious inquiry, often results in important documentation in the form of either plants or photographs. When subjected to scientific scrutiny, such information time and again sheds light upon the hitherto unknown whereabouts of many species growing in the wild. Indeed, the picture that scientists themselves have of the distribution of many an orchid species would be incomplete without the efforts of amateur enthusiasts. Such work brings novelties to light much more oftenthan is generally thought — that is to say, species hitherto unknown to science. The numerous newly discovered and described species named after their (amateur) discoverers bear eloquent witness to the tracking flair of many an orchid enthusiast. Their services in the cause of this plant go much further, however. Numerous efforts around the world to propagate endangered wild species, above all, artificially, and in particular from seed, can he traced back to their initiative. Over-eager conservationists obsessed with legal formalities often regard such amateur activities with suspicion. It is time, however, for such hidebound thinkers to become more pragmatic — to recognise the perils of the age and to pay tribute to the informed efforts of those acting on their own initiative.

Every society of amateur growers strives to produce successes to put before a critical public. Almost all regional and national orchid societies hold shows which when arranged in an exquisite setting and artistically conceived never fail to cast their specific spell over visitors, who are then quite prepared to put up with the overcrowding and queuing involved. Nowhere but at such exhibitions  —
mounted jointly by enthusiasts, gardeners and botanical gardens — can one admire and enjoy, in all their concentrated fullness and enormous multiformity , natural forms, the  products of breeding, and the special manner in which they are presented (as cut flowers, flower arrangements or in the context of art). The crowning glories are the world orchid conferences, always accompanied by an international exhibition, which since 1954 have been staged at three-yearly intervals …

Orchid nurseries
Europe’s first contact with tropical orchids occurred around 1510, when vanilla fruits were first brought back from overseas. But it was only two hundred years later that Europeans succeeded in bringing a tropical orchid to bloom. This happened in Holland, and the species involved was Brassavola nodosa from Mexico. Voyages of research and discovery brought large numbers of tropical orchids first to the botanical gardens of Europe, and soon afterwards to the blooming collections of the propertied classes. Much time was, however, to pass before anyone realized the economic potential of these curiosities and had the idea of setting up an orchid nursery.

The first person to take this risk was Conrad Loddiges in Hackney (England) in 1812. Within the next few decades he was followed by what were to become the famous companies of Veitch in Chelsea, Low in Enfield, Sander in St. Albans and Charlesworth in Eaton (all of them English concerns), as well as Linden in Belgium, and the German companies of Ansorge (Hamburg, 1888), Hennis (Hildesheim, 1891), and Wolter (Magdeburg). For decades, these orchid nurseries lived largely from imports, exploiting natural supplies; the cultivation, propagation and sale of hybrids was to come only much later. All of these firms had their own collectors, many of whom have become famous on account of their discoveries and acts of exploitation, their names immortalized in the nomenclatures of many an orchid. Names such as Lobb (collector for Veitch), Roezl (for Sander), Schlim and Funk (for Linden) and Roebelen (for Hennis) are familiar to every expert. The period in which these collectors were active constitutes the great age of orchid discoveries, and numerous superlatives in the history of orchids stem from these days. The highest price ever paid for an individual orchid plant was, for instance, the astonishing sum of $ 10,000, paid by Low for the pure white albino mutant Cattleya gigas alba. But from today’s point of view there are shocking superlatives, too. It is known of Sandhack, for example, that within the space of a year and a half he alone collected 43,000 examples of the magnificent Ondotoglossum crispum in Colombia and shipped them to Europe. It is not known how many of them survived, if only for a while.

Page 4

Main Translations Index