Alfred Celestin Cogniaux ( 1841 - 1916 )

While a large number of orchid collectors ,botanists ,and horticulturists made their contributions to orchidology by first-hand visits to the natural orchid regions of the world , many others at home were left with the painstaking tasks of classification and collation of the information collected . No less important were these tasks ,and no less exacting in diagnoses and detail. The known orchids of South Americ were yet in a scrambled state by the late 1800s ,and even though a great deal of published and unpublished data existed , the orchids of Brazil , particularly , remained relatively unknown in European herbaria. It remained for Alfred C. Cogniaux , a Belgian botanist , to organize and amplify upon the orchid genera and species of this vast natural orchid region . His comprehensive and critical systemaitzation of the Brazilian botanist. A number of orchids,also , became his namesakes-Dichaea cogniauxiana , Maxillaria cogniauxiana , Pleurothallis cogniauxiana, Miltonia cogniauxiae ,and the genus Cogniauxiocharis .

Alfred Celestein Cogniaux was born in Robechies ,a little village south of Hainaut ,Belgium , on 7 April 1841. Upon completion of his local primary schooling , he became a pupil at the Normal School at Nivelles in 1852. He became a teacher there in 1861 upon receiving his diploma as professor . He had scarcely finished his studies when , alone and without guidance ,he gave himself enthusiastically over to botany. He occupied his attention first with indigenous plants and more particularly with mosses and hepaticas . His first botanical paper, on Nitella tenuissima ,was published in 1863 in the Bulletin of the Royal Botanical Society of Belgium , in which many of his shorter papers on local botany were also subsequently published .

In 1872 he became the conservator of the Brussels Botanic Garden ,where he was given the job of working on the family Cucurbitaceae in the great Flora Brasiliensis of Martius . His work on this family resulted in a volume with thirty -eight plates which appeared in 1878. After that he immediately undertook a general monograph of the same family,a work which won the Pyrame de Candolle Award in 1881 as the best botanical monograph to appear within the previous fifry years.

In 1880 he became professor of natural history in Jodoigne ; four years later he went to Verviers .Meanwhile ,his interest in the Cucurbitaceae and Melastomaceae led him to do several important papers on these families - further monographs and accounts which were incorporated in de Candolle's Monographs (1891) and Martius's Flora Brasiliensis (1883-1888).

While at Verviers, Cogniaux held the position of vice-consul to Brazil,and long before the Flora Brasiliensis was finished , he was put in charge of a general monograph of the Orchid Family .This work occupied thirteen years; it was begun in 1893, following the system proposed by Pfitzer. Based on J. Barbosa Rodrigues' earlier work on Brazilian orchids, Genera er Species Orchidearum Novarum (1877-1882) , it was expanded by a folio of Rodrigues ' unpublished original drawings . In this large undertaking Cogniaux was able to obtain the loan of Rodrigues ' type drawings and to send them on to Kew for comparison and copying .Cogniaux's work contained all the orchids then recorded from Brazil, including many species found in the Guinanas ,Venezuela , Colombia ,Peru, and the adjacent regions.Many were new species , along with detailed descriptions and line drawings . With the completion of the orchid volume in 1906, this work became not only an indispensable guide to the then known Brazilian orchids, but a valuable references to all the orchids of northern South America as well.

Cogniaux retired his chair at Verviers in 1901 with a pension which enabled him to settle at Genappe and devote most of his time to botany. From 1896 he had collaborated with A. Goossens in jointly authoring the Dictionnaire iconographique des Orchidees , a work in which a large number of cultivated orchids were illustrated by chromolithography , from watercolor paintings by Goossens. Published in parts and treating of species important to horticulturists , it was completed in 1907. And even while working on this complex and time-consuming task, Cogniaux labored on his Chronique Orchideenne, Supplement mensuelle , begun in 1897. He was also a contributor to later volumes of Lindenia and the Journal des Orchidees.

In May 1900 he was elected foreign member of the Linnean Society and in 1903 received the diploma of doctor from the University of Heidelberg .

Despite the magnitude of his work in the Orchid Family, he still found time to work in other botanical fields. A Flora of Belgium was issued as well as a number of articles and discriptions of new plants published in Belgian , French ,English ,German ,Swiss ,Portuguese , and American Scientific journals.

In the orchids, Cogniaux next worked out a monograph of the orchids of the west Indies. Though small, and without the valued inclusion of illustrations , this work proved valuable .Begun in 1909, it was published in Belgian ,French ,English ,German ,Swiss , Portuguese , and American scientific journals.

In the orchids,Cogniaux next worked out a monograph of the orchids of the West Indies .Though small , and without the valued inclusion of illustrations , this work proved valuable .Begun in 1909, it was published in the sixth volume of Urban's Symbolae Antillana in 1910. In it , over 500 species were enumerated from over ninety-six genera. It readily became a standard and leading reference on the orchid of the West Indies ,from the Bahamas to Trinidad.

Following his extensive orchid work and despite declining health , Cogniaux returned to his first interest ,the Cucurbitaceae , and had completed the first volumes of his revision of the family when death overtook him on 15 April 1916.

References

Journal des Orchidees . 1896.Galerie des Orchidophiles -M. Alfred Cogniaux Vol. 6.

Orchid Review ,The . 1893. Vol.1. no.9.

Orchid Review ,The . 1917. Obituary. Vol. 25,no. 291.

Orchis. 1916.Gartenflora 55. 10:145-148.

Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London. London. 1916. Obituary Notices. 129 th session .

Schweinfurth ,Chrles . 1959. Classification of Orchids.Ch. 2 of The Orchids -A Scientific Survey .Carl.L. Withner ,ed,. New York : The Ronald Press Co.