- By Orchids New Guinea
- Posted May 29, 2016
Eduard de Vogel
Ed (Eduard Ferdinand) de Vogel (1942-present) studied Biology at the University Leiden (1965-1970). He spent 1971 till 1975 in Indonesia conducting research for a PhD study on Morphology of tree seedlings in Kebun Raya and Herbarium Bogoriense, Bogor, Indonesia. In 1975 he was appointed scientific staff at the Rijksherbarium, State University Leiden, which position he kept till his retirement in 2004. In 1979 he acquired his PhD on the thesis: Seedlings of Dicotyledons: Structure, Development, Types.
Ed de Vogel was from 1975 till 2004 Curator Orchidaceae and collaborator of Flora Malesiana, for which he was coordinator of that family. His main area of interest is Southeast Asia and his fields of research are mainly the subtribe Coelogyninae and from 1993 onwards the inventory and study of the orchids of New Guinea. In 1986 he founded the scientific orchid journal Orchid Monographs, which was 1992 accepted as the orchid volume of Flora Malesiana, till 1997, when publication of the journal was terminated.
He coached a dozen Dutch MSc students, Herbarium staff in Indonesia, and one Indonesian PhD student with their research on Orchidaceae. He was co-supervisor for 4 Dutch PhD students (2 on orchids, and 1 each on vegetation studies and ethnobotany) and was referent for a Danish PhD student in orchids. He designed and gave training courses in Orchid Taxonomy in Southeast Asia, and co-designed and lectured in training courses in general Herbarium Taxonomy in The Netherlands.
Since 1996 till 2010 he was coordinator of a CD-ROM series on the Orchidaceae of Southeast Asia and was together with A. Schuiteman involved in the production of the CD-ROM series Flora Malesiana: Orchids of New Guinea, and one CD with a Checklist of the Orchids of the Philippines, all in co-operation with Expert Center for Taxonomic Identification (Amsterdam), and major Herbaria in Europe and Southeast Asia. Two training projects in CD-ROM work were given to two Southeast Asian Orchid scientists from the Philippines (resulting in above mentioned Checklist on CD) and Vietnam. At present he is engaged in upgrading the CD-ROM based program to the present website, and updating it with recently described new species (some 150), additional distribution- and habitat data, and thousands of new photographs.
Ed de Vogel spent 14.5 years in Southeast Asia, of which 7.5 years working time engaged in fieldwork in tropical forests and vegetations, often as leader of an expedition. He worked in Indonesia on the islands of Java (many short trips), Sumatra (5x), Kalimantan (4x) ...
... Sulawesi (3x), on several islands in the Moluccas (1x) and in Papua (Indonesia) (3x),. He also worked in Sabah (1x), Sarawak (2x), Brunei Darussalam, Brunei (3x), The Philippines (1x) and Papua New Guinea (16x).
Three times (1993, 1996 and 1998) Ed de Vogel visited the Bird's Head Peninsula in Irian Jaya, Indonesia (now named Papua) where he coached 2 Dutch PhD students with their fieldwork for their respective ethnobotanical and vegetation studies for a PhD. He was actively involved in 3 months general botanical collecting for those projects, with in addition a special interest in the orchids of that area.
From 2003 till 2012 Ed de Vogel collected live orchids in Papua New Guinea for the CD-ROM project 'Flora Malesiana: Orchids of New Guinea' which he had initiated, and on which he worked together with André Schuiteman. He obtained special permission from the authorities in Papua New Guinea through the National Research Institute to collect living orchids for cultivation in PNG and in the Hortus at Leiden. He concluded end 2002 an agreement with the Department of Environment and Conservation with its Director Wari Iamo. Thanks to its then Director Wolfgang Bandisch from 2003-2008 a 5 year Memorandum of Understanding for the project Flora Malesiana: Orchids of New Guinea was in place between the National Capital Botanic Gardens Port Moresby (NCBGPM), NHN and HbL. Staff of NCBGPM joined most field trips and were responsible for obtaining the duplicate set of orchids for their garden. In 2008, on demand of Department Environment and Conservation, a 5 year memorandum of Understanding was made with the Forest Research Institute in Lae, NHN and HbL through its then Director Simon Saulei. Permission to collect live orchid specimens was granted to support the CD-ROM series and has resulted in many valuable additions to the knowledge of New Guinea orchids. The New Guinea Orchid field work project lasted 10 years, to inventory, study, collect and grow orchids in PNG and in Leiden for enhancing the Flora Malesiana CD-ROM project.
During all his fieldwork Ed de Vogel gathered approximately 10.000 collections herbarium, specializing in trees and orchids. In addition he brought some 15.000 cuttings of live orchids (c. 7500 from PNG) to various botanical gardens in countries in Southeast Asia and in The Netherlands, as well as over 1000 collections of living seeds of trees for cultivation.
Ed de Vogel visited and studied in many herbaria and Botanical Gardens in America, Australia, Brunei, Europe, Japan and Southeast and East Asia. He lectured at dozens of Orchid Symposia and Congresses all over the world, including 5 World Orchid Congresses, 5 European Orchid Congresses, 2 International Orchid Conservation Congresses and 3 Asia Pacific Orchid Conferences. He is (co-)author of many publications, 24 on Orchidaceae, of which so far 8 in electronic form, including the present website.
