Charles Curtis ( 1853 - 1928 )

The house of Veitch was perhaps the most influential in the introduction of both species and bybrid orchids, and this no doubt was a result of the careful selection and training given to the gardens and apprentics in their employ. It was not merely by chance that their collectors became famous , for by the acquired skill and intelligence of their training ,they formed a highly capable retinue of plant experts . One of their most industrious collectors was Chrles Curtis ,who gathered plant material for them throughout the Malayan Archipelago.

Charles Curtis was a native fo Devonshire , born in 1853 the youngest fo four brothers who all began as garden boys at Bale's Nursery ,North Devon, England. The paternal grandfather , a Norman by the name of Courtois , had settled at Barnstaple many years previously .

Equipped with a better education than his brother ,from Barnstape young Curtis went to London , where he entered Messrs . James Veitch & Sons nursery at Chelsea . For four years he worked in the New Plant Department ,where he became acquainted with numerous travelers and studied hard to prepare himself for a post as plant collector . This opportunity came in 1878 when he was selected to undertake a mission to Mauritius and Madagascar to collect tropical plants for the firm . A great number of plants were gathered ,among them the handsome Angraecum sesquipedale and Nepenthes Madagascariensis . The trip lasted somewhat over a year . Unfortunately ,the first consignment of plants collected was lost due to the treachery of a native servant who ran off with part of Curtis' supplies after cutting the rope which held the raft on which the plants were being floated downriver ,so the work had to be repeated.

Curtis returned to England in 1879 , and in 1880 he was sent to Botneo ,Sumatra ,Java , and the Moluccas , where he collected many interesting orchids ,the collection consisting largely of Paphiopedilum lowii, Paphiopedilum stonei ,and numerous vandas and rhododendrons . On the Bornean trip he was accompanied by David Burke , a young gardener who retured with the plants collectedc chiefly in Sarawak and who afterward became himself a plant collector .

After seeing Burke and the collector safely shipped at Singapore,Curtis proceeded to Dutcu Borneo ,his special being to collect Phalaenopsis violacea ,known in England but at that time still rare .Again he was successful ,but once again he lost his first lot of plants ,his clothes and instruments, and nearly his life as the result of another boating mishap. Once again he recouped , however . A few of the plants he discovered and by which he was commemorated were Paphiopedilum curtisii ,Nepenthes curtisii, and Rhododendron muticolor curtisii .

Through his horticultural and botanical collections Curtis was brought into close contact with the authorities at Kew, by whom he obtained the appointment of superintendent of the Botanic Gardens at Penang in 1884 . His skill in gardening was soon evidenced in the Botanic Gardens, for they became one of the most beautiful plantings in the East. On short leaves of absence he made collections of both living and herbarium specimens at Penang ,Burman , the Landawi Islands and neighboring coastal areas . On some of the trips he was accompanied by Mr. Henry N. Ridley.Both men were interested in the development of the rubber industry ,and experiments they made in Penang proved exceedingly valuable to planters.

All the while Curtis continued to expand his herbarium , at the same time disturbing duplicates to the Kew Herbarium and the British Museum. In further association with Ridley he published a catalog of the flowering plants and ferns of Penang ,and a list of Malayan plant names . On his own he contributed many useful papers on the cultivation of bulbs , aroids ,pot plants , ferns , roses ,and orchids ; instructions on drying plants ; on the occurrence of gutta percha in Penang ; adn various other notes and papers published in the Agricultural Bulletin of the Straits Settlements from 1897 to 1902.

Owing to illness , in 1903 Curtis was compelled to give up his post at the gardens and retire , returning to his home at Barnstape ,England. His main herbarium was transferred to the Singapore Botanical Gardens . In Barnstape he spent the rest of his life in horticultural enjoyment tending his own collection of peach trees , carnations , orchids , sweet peas , streptocarpus ,and neconopsis in a garden above teh Great Western Station .

In the summer of 1928 a severe operation was necessary . For a while thereafer it appeare d as though he might return to normal health , but five weeks after surgery , on 23 August , he died at his home at Barnstaple . To the end , his greaterst regreat was that , due to his poor health ,he had never been able to visti again the scences of his former labours .

references

Gardener's Chronicle . 1928 .Obituary .Vol. 2174 .

Irvin ,R. 1960 .The Early Orchid Collectors .The Orch. Rev. 68 ,no . 803.

Journal of Botany . 1928 . Obituary -Charles Curtis (1853 -1928) .Vol . 66 ,no. 791.

Journal of the Royal Horicultural Society . 1948 .Vol. 73. pt. 9.

Lemmon .Kenneth . 1962 . The covered Garden . London : Museum Press Ltd .

Orchid Review ,The . 1928 . Obituary .Vol. 36 ,No. 424 .

Ridley m,H.N. 1929 .Staits Settlement .The Gardeners' Bulletin 4, nos . 11,12.

van Steenis ,C.G.G.J. 1950 .Cyclopaedia of Collectors . Flora Malesiana . Vol. 1, ser.1.

Veitch ,James H. 1906 .Hortus Veitchii Chelsea ,London : James Veitch & Sons Ltd.