Charles Wesley Powell (May 5, 1854 – August 18, 1927) was an American hobbyist turned horticulturist specializing in the study of orchids (Orchidaceae). He is credited with providing scientists the first large-scale collection of orchid specimens found in Panama. In the early 1900s, he became internationally famous for his new discoveries and valuable contributions to orchidology by gathering, rediscovering, cultivating, preserving, documenting, and submitting-for-study a diverse assortment of hundreds of distinct specimens: yielding many new to science species.
Powell's specimen records (also known as herbarium specimens) and his Panama garden were studied by researchers at the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Berlin Botanical Garden, the Orchid Herbarium of Oakes Ames at Harvard University, the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution, and the Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG). Dozens of orchid species were named in his honor. In 1922, German botanist Rudolf Schlechter published his 95-page Orchidaceae Powellianae Panamenses (Panama orchid collections by C. Powell): principally on the basis of Powell's efforts. Powell's work remains relevant not only because his records document valuable scientific data, but they continue to provide material for study – many of his digitized herbarium specimens are freely available online via virtual herbaria.
In 1926, Powell donated his world-class orchid garden (orchidarium) to the renowned MBG of St. Louis, Missouri. Under Powell's direction, a Tropical Station was created by the MBG in Balboa, Panama; 7,000 plants from Powell's orchid garden populated the satellite operation. For the MBG, a snowball effect occurred in the tropics; orchid collecting began there in earnest and over the next 13 years, orchids from its Tropical Station would appreciably augment the collection of the parent garden in St. Louis. "Today, the Missouri Botanical Garden’s orchid collection represents one of the largest and finest in the United States."
Early life
Known to orchid enthusiasts as C. W. Powell, he was born Charles Lesslie Pullen in Richmond, Virginia, to Benjamin King Pullen Sr. and Minerva "Minnie" Anner (née Smith) Pullen. He was the first-born of eight children. In a letter to Minnie dated July 29, 1854, from Richmond, Ben Pullen writes about his son:
In 1860, 6 year old Lesslie and his family moved, by train, southwest to Memphis, Tennessee, for the opening of his father's china store. Shortly thereafter, Lesslie was uprooted again when his family relocated south for several years. There they struggled to survive on a cousin's farm near Sardis, Mississippi, during the Union Army's occupation of Memphis in the American Civil War and Ben Pullen Sr.'s service as a Confederate Army officer. Perhaps this experience was Lesslie's introduction to agriculture.
Family life, bookkeeper, book-lover, genealogist 1870s After the War, the Pullens moved back to Memphis. In 1871, hard times in the South forced Lesslie's father to advertise his store's closing. By the mid-1870s, Ben Pullen Sr. was a bookkeeper for the State National Bank and Lesslie, now calling himself Charles, was a collector for the bank.
In 1877 he married Adelaide "Addie" Belle Prince (1858-1901), the daughter of a Mississippi antebellum cotton planter. In 1879, the couple's first child, Charles Lesslie was born (living only a few months). Six more children would follow: Bessie, an unnamed infant, David (died young), Adelaide "Addie", Minerva "Minnie", and Margaret. Bessie was born in 1880, and the couple's latter three daughters were born in 1887, 1891, and 1898 respectively.
The Yellow Fever Epidemic hit Memphis in 1878 claiming, among thousands, the life of Pullen's mother. 1880s In the early 1880s, Pullen was appointed to serve Memphis in several leadership positions. Detail oriented, well-read, and popular, he served as Secretary of the Legislative Council of Memphis; Secretary of the Fire and Police Commissioners Board; and Clerk for the Supervisors of Public Works, earning $100 per month. Documenting the day-to-day business of a struggling city, he proved valuable to the citizens who put him in office. "Memphis began to recover quickly after [the Yellow Fever Epidemic of] 1878. Its artesian water supply was discovered and turned into one of the purest water supplies in the nation in the 1880s. Its charter was restored. Its sanitation and sewer systems became models for other cities." In 1885 he bought part-interest in a weekly paper The Sunday Times and was its business manager. He was not only a bookkeeper, but also a book-lover; Pullen collected rare books. His interests went beyond the literary world, however. He conducted exhaustive research on his Pullen and Smith genealogy. Relentless in his pursuit of ancestral names and important dates, he advertised for information throughout New England.
1890s Legal troubles plagued the Pullen family in 1890. By 1894, Pullen, his father, two brothers, a sister, and their families had moved south, settling in Houma and New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1895 he was bookkeeping for the Mutual Insurance Company in New Orleans, and his younger brother, Benjamin K. Pullen Jr., was a travel agent there. 1900s In the 1900 U.S. Census, Pullen, his wife, and 4 daughters are found living in New Orleans. His father died in July of that year; his wife died shortly thereafter in February 1901. In 1902, Pullen's eldest daughter, Bessie, married Ernest Johnson and moved to Texas. His younger girls would be cared for by an aunt living in Central America. His daughter Minnie would marry Texan Joseph Ross, a railroad superintendent, and spend time in Guatemala where their second son was born in 1913. Addie married Charles Foster who worked throughout Central America and Jamaica. About his life in New Orleans and his budding interest in flowers he would say: "I had a little greenhouse in New Orleans before I went to the Canal Zone."
New life: country, name, career, passion
Also known as (aka) Charles Wesley Powell Some combination of events prompted a relatively unconnected Charles L. Pullen to move south to Panama. Exactly when and why he reinvented himself as Charles Wesley Powell is a mystery. In a 1928 biography of Powell, some elements of his pre-Panama days are not supported by facts: leading one to wonder why and by whom (probably Powell, for reasons best known by himself) the details of his life in the U. S. were altered. From 1907 to 1927 he would support himself by working in various positions in a Canal Zone dispensary (basic medical facility) or hospital. With a salary of $60 per month, he started out dispensing quinine (antimalarial drug) at a labor camp in old Gatun (now covered by 80 feet of rock and earth under Gatun Dam). It is not surprising he would be hired for a position in which precise record keeping was important. To better communicate with patients, he studied Spanish. Soon he was certified as a nurse. The front side of his employment record; immigration records in 1913 and 1926 (including addresses in the U.S. of daughter Bessie Johnson and the MBG); and the 1920 U.S. Census (including married daughter Addie in his household) find him using variations of the name Charles Wesley Powell. "Pescadore Grande" "In 1908 Powell transferred to Porto Bello [on the Caribbean Sea] as a dispensary assistant and took up fishing as a hobby, using a row-boat. Early 1910 finds Powell working in a dispensary in [old] Gorgona (now submerged 80 feet below the surface of Gatun Lake) and fishing in Panama Bay. The local fishermen called him 'Pescadore Grande' (great fisherman). Switching his fishing from Panama Bay to Gatun Lake soon followed."
"Look, Powell–Oodles of orchids!"
The immense Gatun Lake, a part of the Panama Canal, was created when the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers dammed the Rio Chagres in the early 1900s. About 1912, Powell and his botanist friend Abel A. Hunter (1877-1935), bought a motor boat for fishing in the newly formed lake. "The waters had risen until they presented a surface through which the upper portions of thousands of tall trees protruded. Their craft cut paths between treetops. Hunter exclaimed, 'Look, Powell–orchids! Oodles of orchids! Treefuls of orchids! Let's get some of 'em.'" "The men knew the dove orchids would soon be submerged by the rising waters of the Chagres River. 'We were rewarded by a boat-load of the 'El Spirito Santo' or Holy Ghost Orchid.' The orchids were brought back to Gorgona and disseminated over the Canal Zone, the United States, and Europe. Soon, the level of the Lake was encroaching on Gorgona, and necessitated a transferring of the workers to Balboa [Pacific side]."
Powell's orchid garden takes root "I can remember my first orchid, I was just looking over the country one Sunday, about 18 months after I got down there when I saw it way up near the top of a tall tree. 'You're certainly a beauty,' I said. 'I must have you.' While I was standing there wondering how on earth to climb that tree a bare-footed Indian came along. 'I'll give you 25 cents gold to get that flower,' I said. The Indian used the vines to swing to the tree [like Tarzan] and cut off the orchid." "For about five years, I suppose, I would pull the orchids apart and study them, but never keep the plants." "He studied the orchid intelligently: learning, throughout the years about orchids from books, worldwide correspondence, and visitors." About the books he remarked: "I couldn't read a French or German newspaper, but with a little Latin I could make out the technical works." In February 1916, Powell was pondering his many memorable orchid-related experiences: echoing in his mind, no doubt, were those at Gatun Lake. A watershed moment occurred; "he lost no time starting an orchid garden." "Powell started his collection on his front porch. When that got so packed with plants he couldn't move, he started an annex by building a tier of shelves on the rear wall of his house." "It wasn't long until both were overflowing and he had to construct a latticed roof and screened-in, vine-clad, wire mesh walls." "The establishing of the garden was actuated by the act of Mrs. A. H. Bryan presenting Mr. Powell with about a thousand plants, and a further donation by Charles H. Beetham." There was nothing published on growing orchids outdoors; Powell pioneered the techniques.
Flower Power
References to the power and allure of the wild orchid are peppered throughout the world's cultural, historical, and contemporary beliefs. As far back as the fifth century BC, the Chinese philosopher Confucius used wild orchids as symbolism to deepen the meaning of his poems; "he compared the virtuous man to an orchid. Echoing this thought, Chinese artists sometimes placed orchids in their work to evoke the Confucian qualities of humility, integrity, refinement—in fact, all the virtues of a perfectly cultured gentleman and scholar." "The ancient Greeks associated it with virility, and the Aztecs were said to drink a mixture of the vanilla orchid and chocolate to give them power and strength." To others, "orchids possess a sensual, quasi-mystical aura: thought of as sexual, wild, rare creatures." In the 1939 book The Orchid Hunters, Norman MacDonald wrote: "For when a man falls in love with orchids, he'll do anything to possess the one he wants. It's like chasing a green-eyed woman [being consumed by desire] or taking cocaine. A sort of madness..." In a 2002 NOVA interview, Susan Orlean (Author, The Orchid Thief, non-fiction) revealed her research findings: "Nothing in science can account for the way people feel about orchids. Orchids arouse passion more than romance. They are the sexiest flowers on Earth."