The jungles of Panama abound with tropical plants in great diversity. Bromeliads, from the beautiful to the bizarre, flourish in its pristine rainforests. Panama's mountains thrust upwards from the massive forces of geological subduction, separating the warm waters of the tropical Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The latitude, altitude and proximity to the warm oceans ensure a warm wet climate, perfect for the diverse and lush flora.
We planned a trip to visit these forests--the veteran from Costa Rica, Chester Skotak, the local expert and our gracious host, Bill Fitz and the novice, me. We were to meet up later at Fortuna with two more Aussies, Mark Paul and Bruce Dunstan and another Panamanian local, Carla Black. It would be the wet season, flowering time for many plants, too.
Searching for Miss Fortuna, 2010 style. The fabled Guzmania 'Fortuna' screamed into the brom headlines after the rare plant auction at the Houston World Bromeliad Conference in 1990. It had been introduced into horticulture in the late '80s by Harry Luther, ex Bromeliad Identification Centre director at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. It was the sort of plant that would be the jewel in a hybridising program, a plant worth being obssessed with.
The lure of the new and colourful jewels, like G. 'Fortuna', was the inspiration for Chester Skotak's highly entertaining 2007 novel, Searching for Miss Fortuna, a story loosely based on true events.
The original plant was collected past the town of Fortuna, at the pass above the hydroelectric dam, at an altitude of about 1100m (3300ft). Unless it were in bloom, it would have looked like a small Guzmania lingulata or G. glomerata, sharing the forest with many other Guzmania species including G. scherzeriana, musaica, plicatifolia, rosea, zahnii, angustifolia as well as a myriad of Thecophylloid Vriesea species now placed in the genus Werauhia. Readers of the novel will know that the mystery Guzmania remained hidden during that mischievous adventure. We did not find it where Harry bagged it, but I will come back to this area later.
Our plan was to first explore the pass at El Cope, where I was assured by Chester that splendid specimens of G. 'Fortuna' ('El Cope' form) would be found in the Atlantic zone. Plants have been marketed for years as either 'Fortuna' or 'El Cope', both variations of a yet-to-be-published Guzmania species. For Chester this was bad memory...