Benedikt Roezl Czech traveller, gardener and botanist (sometimes Benedict or Benito Roezl as called by the Indians). Probably the most famous collector of orchids of his time.

Despite the loss of a hand, Roezl travelled the world and discovered over 800 species of orchid, with more than forty named in his honour.

Roezl was also the founder of one of the Czech botanical magazine Flora in 1880.

Some of the Roezl's Travels

August 3, 1872 New York
Benedikt Roezl travelled with his nephew and collector František Klaboch to New York. Klaboch later died of yellow fever. Through St. Louis they left to Denver.

September 6, 1872 Denver
Roezl collected Yucca angustifolia (6 boxes) and Calochortus (1000). He was robbed here and left to New Mexico. Left again to California.

October 31, 1872 San Francisco
From San Francisco he left to Acapulco and to the surrounding Sierra Madre where he collected over 2000 orchids. When looking for the Oncidium tigrinum orchid, he climbed to 3000 metres above sea level. From Mexico he left for Caracas.

February 10, 1873 Caracas
Roezl was looking for an unknown orchid called "flor de mayo". Collected 8 boxes and left for Mexico via Havana.

March 1873, Sontecomapan, Mexico
Stopped by to pick up his nephew Eduard Klaboch. Then left for Havana and to New York again. From New York travelled to Peru.

August 1873, Peru
He climbed the 5000 metres high mountains to bring back more than 10.000 orchids to Lima. Roezl then travelled to southern Peru.

Bolivia, Ecuador
He visited lake Titicaca, La Paz and through the Illimani mountain walked the Yungas territory, bringing back many orchids. Once again climbed the Andes, visited Ecuador, Chimborazo mounain and at the 6000 metres above sea level he discovered the new Pescatorea roezlii orchid.

April 1874 London

1875 Prague

Plants named in Roezl's Honour

Among the orchids named in his honour are:

• Miltoniopsis roezlii
• Pescatorea roezlii
• Selenipedium roezlii
• Sobralia roezlii

• genus Roezliella
  Roezliella
  Roezliella is a genus of flowering plants from the orchid family, Orchidaceae.- References :*Pridgeon, A.M., Cribb, P.J., Chase, M.A. & Rasmussen, F. eds. . Genera Orchidacearum 1. Oxford Univ. Press....
  
  

Other plants named in his honour:

• Zamia roezlii
  Zamia roezlii
  Zamia roezlii is a species of cycad, a plant in the Zamiaceae family. It is found in Colombia and Ecuador.Named by the Czech botanist Benedikt Roezl....
  
  - a cycad
  Cycad
  Cycads are seed plants typically characterized by a stout and woody trunk with a crown of large, hard and stiff, evergreen leaves. They usually have pinnate leaves. The individual plants are either all male or all female . Cycads vary in size from having a trunk that is only a few centimeters...
  
   of the family Zamiaceae
  Zamiaceae
  The Zamiaceae are a family of cycads that are superficially palm or fern-like. They are divided into two subfamilies with eight genera and about 150 species in the tropical and warm temperate regions of Africa, Australia and North and South America....
  
  
• Ribes roezlii
  Ribes roezlii
  Ribes roezlii is a species of currant known by the common name Sierra gooseberry.-Distribution:It is native to many of the mountain ranges of California, its distribution extending just into Nevada and north into Oregon...
  
  - Sierra gooseberry

List of plants described by Roezl can be found here.

Literature

• Benedikt Roezl: Catalogue des graines de Coniferes mexicains. 1857.
• Benedikt Roezl: My last trip to the western coast of Mexico, 188? in Czech language, magazine Flora as "Poslední má cesta na západní pobřeží mexické"
• Benedikt Roezl: Plants I have discovered in North and South America, 188? in Czech language, magazine Flora as "Rostliny mnou v severní a jižní Americe objevené"

Books and External Links

• Benedikt Roezl on Orchids.co.in
• Benedikt Roezl on Czech radio in Spanish
• Roezl on PACSOA Palm and Cycad Societies of Australia
• Information from the home region of Roezl in Czech
• Lev V.: Benedikt Roezl, Orbis, Praha, 1949 - the main biography on Roezl in Czech language
• The Garden Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, Vol. 122, Feb. 1997
• Healey B.J.: The Plant Hunters, Charles Scribners sons, 1975
• Lemmon K.: The Golden Age of Plant Hunters, Phoenix House,1968
• Coats A. M.:The Plant Hunters, McGraw-Hill
  McGraw-Hill
  The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., is a publicly traded corporation headquartered in Rockefeller Center in New York City. Its primary areas of business are financial, education, publishing, broadcasting, and business services...
  
  , 1970
• Toufar P.: Tajemnou českou krajinou, Regia, Praha, 2001
• Garden ,The . 1885. Obituary .Vo. 28, no. 727.
• Gardeners' Chronicle. 1885. Benedict Roezl. Vol. 24. no. 617.
• Gardeners' Chronicle . 1892. Benedict Roezl.Vol. 11,no. 263.
• Gardening World ,The. 1885.October 24.
• Kline ,Mary C. 1963.Benedict Roezl- Famous orchid collectors .Amer.Orch. Soc. Bull. 32,no. 8.
• Sander,F. 1952. Benedict Roezl and Cattleya aurea . The Orch.Rev. 60 ,no. 710.
• Luigi Berliocchi,Mark Griffiths: The Orchid in Lore and Legend - available on Google Books