Since it was established in 1974, the Smithsonian Institute’s Orchid Collection has grown from just five plants to more than 8,000 specimens.
It’s about to get quite a bit larger.
The estate of the late Denis Roessiger of Penobscot, an avid collector of orchids who died last year, will donate more than half of his collection, about 2,000 individual plants, to the Smithosnian Gardens.
A lifetime orchid enthusiast, Roessiger had traveled the world to build his collection which numbered more than 3,500 orchids when he died suddenly last November. Some of Roessiger’s friends have said that his was the largest private collection of orchids in the country. Although his wife, Lucybelle Roessiger, said while she is unsure of that status, she acknowledges that his collection was substantial.
“I don’t think there are many like it in New England,” she said.
After Denis died, Lucybelle said, she did an inventory of the plants and developed a spread sheet listing all the individual orchids. At the suggestion of her brother-in-law, she sent the list to the Smithsonian and asked if they were interested.
They were.
“I previewed the list of orchids and it really was quite remarkable,” said Tom Mirenda, the orchid collection specialist at the Smithsonian Gardens.
The collection is not only large, but also includes a wide variety of different orchid species as well as a great deal of diversity within the different species, especially three specific species, the Cattlyea, Laylea and Bulbo phylum, which was a particular Roessiger favorite.
“It’s rare that we get the opportunity to be offered such a large collection,” said Vicki DiBella, the greenhouse and nursery manager at the Smithsonian Gardens. “We’re excited to be able to add some of that diversity into our collection.”
If all goes as planned, later this month about 2,000 of Roessiger’s orchids will travel by climate-controlled truck to the Smithsonian Gardens Greenhouse Facility in Suitland, Md., outside Washington, D.C. The greenhouse facility is a behind-the-scenes arm of the Smithsonian Gardens, according to DiBella, which maintains the grounds of the Smithsonian, including a number of gardens around the National Mall, and designs the garden approaches outside the various Smithsonian museums, which set the mood for each museum. In recent years, the Gardens have received several accreditations and certifications which place it among the premier public gardens and botanical gardens in the country. It also supports a variety of research and educational programs in addition to the public displays and special exhibits. According to Mirenda, the orchid collection, which includes between 8,000 and 10,000 individual orchids not counting the Roessiger additions, is particularly active in public programs including a major exhibit each year as well as regular educational programs.
“We do a lot of teaching with our collection, particularly in biology and ecology,” he said. “All of these orchids have great stories to tell and we like to share them with our audience.”
Roessiger’s love affair with orchids began when he was a teenager in Connecticut where he was a caretaker on an estate where they had orchids. It lay dormant for a while, but blossomed again after he and Lucybelle moved to Penobscot 20 years ago, and he soon began to focus on raising, collecting and selling orchids wholesale from six greenhouses on their New Day Farm.
“He’d had orchids as a teenager,” Lucybelle said. “He returned to his first love.”
Over the next two decades, he built his collection, which included some rare specimen plants as well as more common varieties. He and Lucybelle traveled the world, developing relationships with breeders and growers in countries as far flung as Taiwan, Ecuador and South Africa. Although much of his work involved growing orchids for retailers, he often drew on his international contacts—many of which he kept secret—to provide special varieties for customers.
Denis enjoyed the collecting trips, she said, even when there were restrictions in some countries that prohibited collecting in the wild. He always went armed with a camera.
“He loved to go into the country and see what the conditions were in the wild and then figure out what they needed in the greenhouse,” she said.
The donation to the Smithsonian is part of the process of downsizing the orchid collection. The folks at Smithsonian Gardens have been working on the logistics of moving 2,000 orchids from Maine to Maryland for a while now. According to DiBella, they needed to find a refrigerated truck large enough to hold the plants, but small and versatile enough to navigate the narrow, dirt road leading to their farm. Boxes have already been shipped to Maine and volunteers have updated the identification tags for the orchids to reflect name changes that have taken place over the years.
DiBella and Mirenda travel to Maine on July 27 to oversee the sorting and packing of the plants which are scheduled to leave on July 30 and be in Maryland by the end of the month. They will be quarantined in an unused greenhouse for a time before they become a part of the collection.
Although it is difficult to see the collection broken up, Lucybelle said that it was fitting that Denis’s orchids would be part of the Smithsonian collection and its educational programming. Denis loved to talk to people about his orchids, she said, and he would be happy that his orchids were going to be a part of those public programs.
“I think he’d be pleased. He’d be pleased that people were going to see them,” she said.
