Notes on Sigmatostalix buchtieni and Otto August Buchtien Rudolf Jenny. Swiss Orchid Foundation, Jany Renz Herbarium, University of Basel, Switzerland. [email protected] M.W.Chase & N.H.Williams, Orchids (AOS) 77(12): Lindleyana: 22 (2008) Syn: Sigmatostalix buchtienii Kraenzlin, Repertorium Specierun Novarum Regni Vegetabilis 25: 24 – 25.1928. Abstract: The taxonomic history of Oncidium (Sigmatostalix) buchtienii and the biography of its discoverer Otto August Buchtien are given. Keywords: Buchtien, Oncidium buchtienioides, Sigmatostalix buchtienii. The genus Sigmatostalix Rchb. f. was de- belonging to Oncidium Sw.. Some Sigma- scribed by Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach tostalix species have very beautiful, small in 1852 in “Botanische Zeitung”; “Sigma- flowers, the inflorescences often looking tostalix” is formed from two Greek words like a row of birds sitting on a wire. “sigma” for s-shaped and “stalix” for stake and refers to the shape of the col- Sigmatostalix buchtienii Kraenzl. was umn. As type of the genus Reichenbach described by Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig specified Specklinia graminea Poepp. Kraenzlin in 1928 in “Feddes Repertori- & Endl. which had been described in um” from a plant collected in the region 1835 by Eduard Friedrich Poeppig and of Mapiri, Bolivia by Otto August Buch- Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher in “Nova tien. Kraenzlin received a collection of 80 Genera ac Species Plantarum quas in species from Buchtien recognising 20 of regno Chilensi Peruviano et in Terra Am- them as being new and wrote that– like azonica, annis 1827 – 1832”. Today Sig- Reichenbach - he would leave Pleurothal- matostalix includes about 55 species and lis and Stelis for later treatment. Buchtien by use of molecular data, is accepted as had collected the plant (no.516) near San Orquideología XXXIII - 1 / junio - 2016 Carlos, Bolivia, at about 850 m altitude was published in Orchids, the Bulletin of in February 1927. So far I have not been the American Orchid Society in 2008. able to find out whether the type spec- imen still exists somewhere - it is not Otto August Buchtien among Kraenzlin’s material in Hamburg Otto August Buchtien was born in 1859 but Kraenzlin wrote that he had a draw- in Rostock, Germany. He studied in Ros- ing of the species from F. C. Lehmann: tock and achieved his PhD in 1887, his “Unter meinen Zeichnungen befinden thesis was “Entwicklungsgeschichte des sich vier mit grosser Sorgfalt hergestellte Prothalliums von Euquisetum” (histo- Abbildungen von Sigmatostalix-Arten ry of the evolution of the prothallium of von F. C. Lehmanns Hand, unter diesen Equisetum), published in 1887 in “Bibli- die wohl einzig existierende Abbildun- otheca Botanica”. gen dieser Art”, (in my drawings I have four of Sigmatostalix species, produced In 1893 he went as a teacher to Chile, in with utmost care by F. C. Lehmann, 1906 he was invited by the Bolivian gov- one of them probably the only existing ernment to La Paz to organize the Na- one of this species) the supposition is tional Museum and from 1907 to 1923 therefore that there was/is no herbari- he was employed as the director of the um specimen. Two drawings of Sigma- Museo Nacional in La Paz. However due tostalix buchtienii have been published, to economic problems, the government both in the second series of “Icones suspended Buchtien’s contract and Plantarum Tropicarum”, the first (t.171) when he finally left Bolivia in 1936, he by C. Inchaustigui from a plant collected took his plant collections with him and in the department of Húanuco, Perú, by sold them to the herbarium of the Smith- E. Jara in January 1988; the other (t.373) sonian Institution in Washington (USA). by Roberto Vasquez from a plant he col- His field notebook is today in the library lected in January 1979 in the department of the New York Botanical Garden. Buch- of Cochabamba, Bolivia. Two coloured tien finally died in 1946 in Hagen, West- pictures were published by D. Mulder & phalia, Germany. T. Mulder-Roelfsma in 1990 in “Orchids travel by the air”, one being the normal In his years as director of the museum coloured form, the other an almost white in La Paz, Buchtien travelled through Bo- one. livia, Peru and the northern part of Pa- tagonia collecting plants. In 1918 he col- In 2006 Agnieszka Romowicz and lected in the area of Cusco in Peru, later, Dariusz L. Szlachetko described in the around 1924, he went on a collecting trip “Polish Botanical Journal” the genus in the Yungas, a mountainous region Vitekorchis Romowicz & Szlach. and re- north-east of La Paz over the eastern combined Oncidium buchtienii Schltr. to Cordillera. Vitekorchis buchtienii (Schltr.) Romowicz & Szlac.. Oncidium buchtienii has noth- He travelled with Albert Spear Hitchcok, ing to do with Sigmatostalix buchtienii, botanist and specialist in grasses of the but when in 2008 the members of the U.S.Department of Agriculture. Buch- genus Sigmatostalix were moved to the tien’s first known collection of Bolivian genus Oncidium, it was seen that the plants had been made in 1906, and Ru- epithet (species name) buchtienii was al- dolf Schlechter in Berlin had treated the ready occupied so Mark W.Chase, Norris orchids from that first large collection H.Williams, Kurt M.Neubig and W.Mark (2,000 in number) in 1911 by publishing Whitten had to select a new epithet and the new species in volume 12 of the “Fed- decided that Sigmatostalix buchtienii des Repertorium”. should become Oncidium buchtienoides M.W.Chase & N.H.Williams. The transfer In 1922 Schlechter received another large of Sigmatostalix to Oncidium was based collection of material which Buchtien had on molecular data (DNA analysis) and put together during the war years; a treat- • 31 • ment of this later collection by Schlech- barium of the Botanical Garden Ham- ter which consisted of 115 species in 38 burg, Germany of which about 3,400 genera including 68 new species under were sent by Buchtien’s son in 1946; the title “Orchidaceae Buchtienianae” in other large parts are in the AMES her- 1929, four years after Schlechter´s death barium and in Buenos Aires (BAF). in November 1925. Only a few publications by Buchtien are known, one is “Contribuciones a la Flo- Buchtien’s collections are distributed ra de Bolivia” from 1910, where he list- in many herbaria, with the main part in ed only 11 species in 9 genera, all deter- Washington; 5,790 items are in the her- mined by Kraenzlin. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES See spanish version. Orquideología XXXIII - 1 / junio - 2016.