Joler

I have recently been researching an orchid that was created by a man named Charles Vuylsteke. He crossed Cochlioda, Miltonia, and Odontoglossum to create the Vuylstekeara Orchid. I was curious if anybody knew any history about Charles Vuylsteke? Also, where one may find this delightful species?

lspichkin

Courtesy of Wikipedia

There are a few varieties of Vuylstekeara Orchids for sale on Orchidweb.com. Where one of these the one you were looking for?

dipo

By coincidence I've read your request for information concerning Charles Vuylsteke. I'm sending you the English summary concerning the life and work of Charles Vuylsteke, and the origin of the Vuylstekeara based on the book I've written in 1995.

Greetings,
Dirk Podevijn, Aalst (Belgium)

Summary.

Charles Vuylsteke was born in Ghent on 1 September 1844 into a family with farming and horticulture in its blood. His grandparents were self-employed farmers in Meulebeke, West Flanders, whilst his father worked as a nurseryman in the region of Ghent. It is therefore not surprising that he himself had green fingers.

In 1859, the family settled in Lochristi where Ferdinand Vuylsteke, helped by his son, looked after the gardens in Rooselaer Castle. Eight years later, Charles Vuylsteke started his own market gardening business on land leased from the castle. Within a short space of time, he was employing skilled young staff who worked hard to expand his market gardening business. Charles Vuylsteke could afford to be very selective in choosing his employees due to the good reputation that his company had, and the because of the large numbers of applicants who sought to work for him, from Belgium and abroad. In addition to the workers, the acreage worked by the company was an important component in its expansion. This increased constantly between 1867 and the First World War.

Diversity and innovation were other key factors in the success of this market gardening company. In 1879, Charles Vuylsteke had decided to expand his range of plants to include exotic plants. To do this, he developed his own policies, not sending out plant hunters, but using the official channels of the Belgian embassies and consulates in Africa, Asia, America, and Oceania to make contact with local botanists with whom he could exchange or purchase plants or seeds. This proved to be a successful formula.

Charles Vuylsteke, however, wanted to be more than just a ‘middle-man’ who resold exotic plants from the tropics to third parties. He tried to offer his clients something extra by striving for innovation, and to this end began producing new hybrids. He was so successful in this for palms, begonias, and azaleas, but especially for orchids, that it earned him the title of ‘King of the Hybrids’ from his colleagues in Belgium and abroad.

In 1904, he became the first nurseryman in the world to create an Odontioda intergeneric hybrid, something which had previously been considered impossible. Shortly before the First World War, he also became the first person in the world to produce a tri-generic hybrid, containing three genera of orchids instead of one or two. This nothogenus was named after him – Vuylstekeara – and went on to lead its own successful life, separate from the company in Lochristi. It became, and still is, one of the most famous and popular genus of orchids in the world, the most famous ones being: Vuylstekeara Cambria ‘Plush’, Vuylstekeara Helmut Song ‘Anja’, Vuylstekeara Edna Stamperland, Vuylstekeara Linda Isler, and Vuylstekeara ‘Board Hill’.

Charles Vuylsteke’s innovative capacity was not limited to just ornamental plant cultivation, however, for in 1889, he won an inventor’s certificate for a greenhouse heating installation. In the trade press, he worked together with other orchid growers in 1896 to start his own periodical: the Dictionnaire Iconographique des Orchidées.

In addition to being involved in politics, he was one of the driving forces in the professional sector behind the organisation which was set up in Sint-Amandsberg in 1897 for ornamental plant growers in the north-west of East Flanders and which published the first Dutch language periodical for horticulturalists in Belgium: De Plantenbeurs van Vlaanderen.

His innovative skill was especially appreciated at national and international shows. Both in Belgium and abroad, his hybrids were universally admired. This was partly the reason why droves of curious commoners and noblemen visited Charles Vuylsteke’s company to inspect and buy thousands of orchid flowers and plants. However, the company laboratory, where Charles Vuylsteke supervised a transformation in orchid seed raising from the symbiotic to the asymbiotic method, was strictly out of bounds to everyone because it contained the commercially secret information that gave him such cultivation and breeding success.

The First World War meant the end of the Belle Epoque and, consequently, the end of orchid production. The flower growing industry was plunged into crisis through a confluence of events. The war changed the spending patterns of the wealthy bourgeoisie completely, new plant diseases arose, and the company and its structure became antiquated. Additionally, Charles Vuylsteke passed away in 1927, as did his son nine years later. So, in 1937, this successful market gardening company went into liquidation. This meant the end of a pioneering business which nonetheless left behind enormous horticultural spin-offs at regional, national, and international level.

At a regional level, Charles Vuylsteke was the midwife of commercial market gardening in Lochristi and the surrounding areas. Research has shown that the success of his market gardening company inspired many others to set up their own businesses there. Shortly before the First World War, Lochristi contained 164 horticulturalists, 20 of whom were based between Antwerpsesteenweg and the Lochristi railway station.

At a national level, the trade press call Charles Vuylsteke the father of orchid cultivation in Belgium, which, together with Great Britain, was the world leader in this field before the First World War.

At an international level, Charles Vuylsteke distinguished himself by creating the orchid intergeneric hybrids, Vuylstekeara and Odontioda.

Source: PODEVIJN,DIRK (red.). Charles Vuyslteke sr. en jr., fine fleur van de Belgische sierteelt (1867-1937). Ghent, 1995.