Hunters and Importers
Orchid Fever
When the English ornithologist, William John Swainson (1789-1855) used plants of the orchid, Cattleya labiata, as packing material in 1818 he began what is referred to as “orchid fever”. It is said that when the plants flowered and created a sensation, a lust for these lucrative plants was born.
Plant importers quickly reacted and employed people to travel to the remote tropics in search of the next novelty. The largest and most famous of these plant importers were James Veitch & Sons based in Chelsea, and Frederick Sander (1847-1920). Sander, who became known as the “the orchid king” was the official Royal Orchid Grower to Queen Victoria and employed 23 orchid hunters, and owned 60 greenhouses in St. Albans, London.
The Collectors
Orchid hunting was always a precarious adventure and not one for the faint hearted. In 1901, eight hunters went to look for rare orchids in the Philippines. One of them was eaten by a tiger, another had oil spilled on him and he burned alive, and five others vanished completely.
Sander was a tough boss. One collector, Wilhelm Micholitz (1854 – 1932), while collecting in New Guinea had his ship engulfed in fire while getting ready to sail home. He contacted Sander about his predicament and Sander sent a cable with the curt reply:
'Return, recollect'
(Thurlow, n.d.)
Micholitz in later letters was delighted to recount that he had found a new source of orchids in the jungle, albeit in rather gruesome circumstances—growing on a pile of human remains.
Frederick Moore in Lesser known Orchids described Chondrorhyncha chestertoni as “a beautiful species”.
It was named after Joseph Henry Chesterton (c.1840 -1883) who developed a love of orchids when he travelled as a valet through South America. Chesterton wrote to Veitch stating that he had gathered a substantial collection but needed advice on how to pack them. Veitch employed him and he sent many new finds back to England over the next eight years. In 1878, he went to work for Veitch's principal rival, Sander.
However, he did not escape the perils of orchid hunting and came to a sad end in Colombia, as seen from his obituary of 1883.
'Mr. J. H. Chesterton, the botanist, died at Puerto Berrio on the 26th. He had been quite ill, but left the hotel 'San Nicholas,' thinking that he had sufficiently improved to be able to make his trip up the river. Sad mistake! He continued to decline, and was barely put on shore at Puerto Berrio where he died. Poor Chesterton's reckless spirit rendered him very efficient as a plant-collector.'
(Veitch, 1906)
Irish Collectors
Glasnevin never directly employed plant hunters and chose to increase the collections through auctions, plant sales, exchanges and donations. Some plant acquisitions of the time came through the travels of staff. Charles Frederick Ball (1879- 1915), a Leicestershire native, trained at Kew before being employed in Glasnevin in 1906 as an outdoor foreman. A year later, he was appointed Assistant Keeper. His main interest was in plant breeding. He took part in several plant-hunting expeditions to central and southern Europe and the Maritime Alps. Ball enrolled in the 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers and died in Gallipoli on 13th September 1915 after injury from shell fragments.
'The death of Charles Frederick Ball was deeply felt in Glasnevin.'
(Nelson & McCracken, 1987)