About Orchids – A Chat

Frederick Boyle

Boyle’s biggest legacy, was not The Woodlands Orchids, but a book he had written in 1893, “About Orchids – A Chat” in which he created a grand myth about the discovery of Cattleya labiata. Boyle’s myth has been told and retold by orchid experts, both botanical and horticultural, as though it were fact for over a century. It is still presented occasionally even today as the truth about the discovery of C. labiata even though it is factually untrue in all respects.

Boyle’s myth about Cattleya labiata tells us that the plants was discovered by accident when used as packing material for some ferns and lichens that a collector, William Swainson, sent from Brazil to William Cattley in Barnet, England. The packing material, (C labiata), was thrown under the benches and to the surprise of everyone, it bloomed with beautiful lavender orchid flowers.

Boyle makes a joke out of the common belief at the time that Swainson collected the Cattleya labiata plants in the Organ Mountains near Rio de Janeiro, and says that “The orchids fell in his way by accident – possibly collected in distant parts by some poor fellow who died at Rio. Swainson picked them up, and used them to stow his lichens.”

We know today that Cattleya labiata is native to the Brazilian state of Pernambuco and it never existed in the state of Rio de Janeiro. It was first discovered in Pernambuco by William Swainson in 1817 and Swainson shipped the plants not to William Cattley but to the Glasgow Botanic Garden in Scotland. At the request of Swainson, Glasgow sent a few of the plants to William Cattley and Cattley took such good care of them that they flowered a full year ahead of the plants in Glasgow.

Boyle can be forgiven for creating his charming myth because, in 1893, no one actually knew where Swainson had discovered the plants. It was not until 1900 that Swainson’s “Sketch of a Journey through Brazil in 1817-1818,” which appeared in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal of 1819 (vol 1 Pgs 369-373), came to light and solved the puzzle. Dispelling Boyle’s myth takes a lot of the romance out of the discovery of Cattleya labiata. The plant was simply found in a routine collecting trip through Pernambuco by a wandering English naturalist and shipped back to his customer, the Glasgow Botanic Garden, from Recife, the nearest Brazilian seaport. If Swainson had never written a letter to Professor Jameson about his trip to Brazil which was published in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, Boyle’s myth would be gospel today.

The discovery of Cattleya labiata still makes a good story because no C. labiata plants were found for over 70 years after Swainson’s original shipment because everyone was looking for them in the wrong place – Rio de Janeiro instead of Pernambuco.