Fritz Hamer

Fritz Hinrich Paul Hamer (born November 22, 1912 in Hamburg , † January 13, 2004 in Sarasota , Florida ) was a German orchid researcher . Inspired by his travels and stays in Central America , he developed into an explorer of the orchids of these countries. Carlos Ossenbach , Costa Rican architect and orchid researcher, writes about him: “During the second half of the 20th century, Fritz Hamer was the best-known and perhaps only expert on orchids from El Salvador and Nicaragua.” His official botanical abbreviation is “ Hamer ”.

Life

Fritz Hamer grew up with a brother and a sister in Hamburg ; his parents were Johann Hamer and Dora Hamer, née Schlueter. Even as a child, Hamer showed a talent for drawing and painting and used an easel for this as a schoolboy . In addition, he began to take photos and develop the photos himself. After graduating from high school in St. Georg in Hamburg, he actually wanted to become a drawing teacher, but had to forego art studies because of the difficult economic situation in Germany.

Instead, he trained with a Dutch export company, which sent him to Venezuela and then Guatemala in 1937 . When the German troops marched into Holland after the start of the war (1939), Hamer and his German colleagues were fired from this company. He was then placed as an unskilled worker at the German embassy in Guatemala. With this he was expelled, interned in the USA and sent back to Germany, where he was drafted into the Russian campaign in 1942. After the end of the war, Hamer moved again to Guatemala , and later to El Salvador , where he founded a company that still exists today. In El Salvador he wrote most of his main work, Las Orquideas de El Salvador . Among other things, he reforested a large area of ​​35,000 (mostly) pine trees on El Pital Mountain with the help of the local population in years of work and with financial help from El Salvador. A stately forest has now emerged from this.

In 1980, because of the political unrest in El Salvador, he moved with his family to the USA in Florida , where he was won over as curator for orchids at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens Sarasota . In 1991 a series of stamps was printed in Nicaragua based on his work (illustrator Robin Brickmann). One of the represented orchids is the orchid Maximillaria hedwigae, discovered by Hamer's wife Hedwig and named after her .

Researches

In 1960, Hamer began collecting, cultivating, photographing, drawing, watercolouring and preparing orchids in El Salvador and assigning them. In order to be able to observe them better, he constructed an orchid house with a humidifier. The whole family took part in the weekly excursions and the search for the orchids. The description of this research, the basis for his books, fills ten files. He wrote the scientific texts in three languages, Spanish, English and German. For his work he sought contact with Dr. Leslie A. Garay , director of the Orchid Herbarium at Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts, who became his lifelong mentor and friend. Hamer received an official special permit for scientific work there.

After moving to Florida, Hamer took over the revision of the unpublished collections and materials on the orchids of Nicaragua of the German-American Alfonso H. Heller, who died in 1973, as a curator at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens Sarasota . It was Hamer who printed this extensive material as a loose-leaf collection (bound two volumes) within the Iconnes Plantarum Tropicarum series . In it, he also demonstrated the occurrence of Nicaragua's orchids in the neighboring Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras , El Salvador and Costa Rica . His working material for this in turn fills numerous folders. Hamer added the story of the Heller collection to the print Orchids of Nicaragua .

In addition to his five published books on orchids, Hamer took over the translation into German of the seven volumes of the Thesaurus Draculum (1988–1994) and the first six volumes of A Treasure of Masdevallia (1996–2001).

Printed fonts

• Fritz Hamer: Orquideas Interesantes de El Salvador . In: Orquideologia 6, 1971, pp. 155-159, 219-223.
• Fritz Hamer: Las Orquideas de El Salvador, I - II . Ministerio de Education Direccion de Publiicaciones, San Salvador, El Salvador, Centro América, 1974.
• Fritz Hamer: Las Orquideas de El Salvador, III . Horti Selbyani (The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens) Sarasota, Florida, USA) 1981.
• Fritz Hamer: Orchids of Nicaragua, I . Horti Selbyani , printed as loose-leaf collection (The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens Sarasota) Sarasota, Florida, USA 1982–85 (with an introductory, English foreword about the history of the collection, 1985).
• Fritz Hamer: Orchids of Nicaragua, II . Horti Selbyani , printed as loose-leaf collection (The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens Sarasota) Sarasota, Florida, USA 1982–85.

literature

• Carlos Ossenbach: Fritz Hamer (1912-2004) - In Memoriam - . In: Die Orchidee , bimonthly publication of the Deutsche Orchideen-Gesellschaft 55 (5), 2004, pp. 655–657.
• Fritz Hamer: Handwritten documentation in private ownership.

Remarks

1. ↑ Carlos Ossenbach (Research Associate, Jardin Botanico Lankester, Universidad de Costa Rica PO Box 1031-7050 Cartago, Costa Rica, CA [e-mail].): Fritz Hamer (1912-2004) - In Memoriam - . In: Die Orchidee , bimonthly publication of the Deutsche Orchideen-Gesellschaft 55 (5), 2004, pp. 655–657.
2. ↑ A documentary written by Hamer about his life is privately owned. From this and from conversations with his widow Dr. Hedwig Hamer comes from details that are not contained in the article by Ossenbach.
3. ↑ private property. Part of the working documents and working library Hamers was taken over from the Botanical Gardens in San Salvador.
4. ↑ According to Carlos Ossenbach from the amount of a truck (in: - In Memoriam Fritz Hamer - .)
5. ↑ See Fitz Hamer: Orchids of Nicaragua I and II .
6. ↑ private property.
7. ↑ Fritz Hamer: Orchids of Nicaragua I .

Web links

• Author entry and list of the described plant names for Fritz Hamer at the IPNI
• Orchid researcher Fritz Hamer [1]