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THE HISTORY OF DISCOVERIES AND ORCHID RUSH
There was no any tropical orchid in Europe up to the beginning of the 18th century. The main reason was that most of them are epiphytic. It was known from the travellers that orchid are growing at the trees; they were supposed during a long time to be parasitic and thus their cultivation was considered as senseless. Some attempts to import the orchids failed because nobody knew proper cultivation methods.

In Miller's "Garden Dictionary" first edition (1733) the orchids were not mentioned; the 8th edition refers to 30 species of exotic orchids existing, native to Africa and India, were they are growing at the trees, but the author writes that since these plants cannot be grown in soil, there is no sense to describe them.
The first tropical orchid came to Europe alive was Bletia verrucunda (syn. Bletia purpurea), a terrestrial orchid bearing rosered blossoms on a flower stem having up to meter height. It was sent from Bagams by Collynson and came to blooming in 1733.
In 1793 captain Blay brought from his trip 15 orchids, including Oncidium altissimum, Oncidium carthagenense, Lycaste barrigtoniae, Epidendrum ciliare and others.

In the end of 18th century many expedition were sent to investigate Central America. Europeans were amazed by huge amount of various orchids discovered there. Some kind of garden and scientific insanity started, more and more new variations were being discovered. There was no any vaccines in that time of orchid rush beginning and many people perished trying to find new plants. The "orchid hunters" got a fever or typhus in bogs or swampy shores of american rivers, they were injured by insects or wild animals.

The investigation of valleys, canyons, jungles and highlands was under sharp competition. The collectors often tried to hide the native places of a plant discovered, publishing false sometimes, in some cases native places were lost and rediscovered later.
Nowadays all these troubles are eliminated ane we are grateful to the travellers and collectors who made so much for our knowledge about orchids; they worked hard to make us able to enjoy by these precious representatives of the vegetable kingdom.
Giving our regards to those highminded people we should remember that many other orchid hunters were greedy adventurers considering the orchids as a mean for making a profit only. The behavior of such "collectors" was crazy and sometimes destructive.
For example, two British people picked up all orchids through whole area in Santa-Katarine (Brasil); since they could not take all plants collectcd, they trow the part to the sea.
Belgian collectors (only one expedition) collected more than 10000 orchids during 8 days in Mexico.
One indian-collector found the tree near Cordoba (Mexico) with unique laelia anceps variation, collected all what he could bring with him and then burned all remaining plants. Later he sold all his collection in city of Mexico and all those plants perished there. But how many europian collectors made the same! And how many orchid species discovered in the beginning of 19th century disappeared from their native country! There are infinite number of similar sad stories when these "air daughters" were ruthlessly killed for the profit only.
Many botanical discoveries were made that time just occasionally, as, for example, it occured with the first cattleya came to Europe. In 1818 Swenson collected mosses and lichens in Brasil and took same pieces of dense hardleaved plants for packing his collection when sending it to England. When the shipment arrived, William Cattley, famous gardener, had recognized that those strange plants represent something extraordinary and saved them from sacrificing. They came to blooming in 1824 and were studied by famous botanist Lindley, who defined them belonging to unknown genus. He described those plants and gave the name Cattleya to the new genus in honour of happy owner.

Skinner, the traveller, discovered Laelia superbiens in 1838. Baleman quotes Skinner's story when describing orchids of Mexico and Guatemala:"I found this orchid the first time in Sumpango village, being grown by indians upper their house entry. A year later I started to look for its native places and managed to find after 3 days in Sahmarohon bushes, not far from city of Guatemala. It grows there in enormous amounts: most showy specimen are growing on rocks leeward side. Separate plants had pseudobulbs of 55 cm height with flower stem as long as 3m 60cm bearing 20 blossoms. Next morning, when I was walking, the soil was covered by a frost, and laelias grows on northern side thereof!
Spanish-speaking Indians called this species as "The stick of holy Jose". Reminiscences only are now kept about this wonderful plant. Whether it is still existing?"
From 1825 the orchids started to attract botanist's attention in professional sense. One of the first authors was Lindley who published a set of foundamental papers. He was publishing the papers about orchid biological pecularities from 1826 to 1865, when he died. It was foundamental problem for botanists studying and classifying the orchids because those from Western hemisphere were not adjustable to existing genera. First people truing to grow these plants had a lot of trouble. They recognized that the plants cannot be grown in usual manner, i. e. in the pot with a soil. Also they failed to grow them from seeds using ordinary methods. Loddigez, the gardener and botanical magazine publisher, was one of the first who came to success in orchid growing. Starting from 1825 he used new planting methods providing the plants with plenty of light and air. He managed to grow successfully some species of vanda, aerides and dendrobiums being received from Roxburg — Calcutta Botanical Garden director. That time one of the most typical mistake in orchid cultivation was that growing conditions found proper for one plant group was automatically supposed to be good for other orchids. It got known later that even orchids from the same region may need different climate and temperature conditions. Indeed, some of them were growing near waterfalls, being permanently wet because of plenty of water drops, while others were from places opened for sun. Some of them were inhabitants of small altitudes under warm conditions while others were close to mountain tops, having cool days and nights. Some of them were growing on tree branches, while others were terrestrial, growing in soil. From our modern knoledge point of view, we can only wonder how even a few of the plants could survive. But successful growers had made the same mistake as collectors had, hiding their secrets. The curtain of mystery was kept up to 20th century. There was popular belief that only initiated into the secretepeople can grow orchid successfully and this made most of novice to sur­render after the first failure.
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