Biography

Swiss botanist. Adolphe Tonduz, who was born and educated in Lausanne and who died in Caracas, arrived in San José, Costa Rica, in 1889 after being appointed to assist the botanist Henri Pittier as a plant collector. Pittier had been hired two years earlier by the government of Costa Rica to engage in a scientific exploration of the country and assume directorship of the national geographic institute. Tonduz accompanied Pittier on all his expeditions in Costa Rica between 1889 and 1903. Their efforts, combined with those of their colleague Paul Biolley, a Swiss botanist from Neuchâtel, resulted in a herbarium of approximately 20,000 specimens, more or less complete sets of which can be found at the Smithsonian and several major European institutions. His fortunes declined after Pittier left the country to work for the United States Department of Agriculture, and at one point he was working as a labourer on a coffee plantation. He had an interest in plant pathology, especially of the diseases affecting cacao and coffee plants, and in 1921, shortly before his death, was appointed as a plant pathologist in the agricultural service of Guatemala. The genus Tonduzia Pittier (Apocynaceae) and many species, including Aechmea tonduzii Mez & Pittier, Stelis tonduziana Schltr. (= Apatostelis tonduziana (Schltr.) Garay) and Vriesea tonduziana L.B. Sm., are named after him.

Sources:
H.F. Pittier, 1922, "Un Botaniste Vaudois", Gazette de Lausanne, 24 February 1922.