Jay Pfahl, the ‘orchidolic’ who discovered two new species in 2020 1 minute read
Key West (USA), Jan 30 (efe-epa).- To many familiar with his work, Jay Pfahl is not merely an orchidologist but an “orchidolic” the specialist cultivates some 4,000 orchids at his home in Key West, Florida.
In 2020, he discovered two new species of the flower while scouring the countryside outside the Colombian capital Bogotá, which came to be known as Epidendrum pfahlii and Epidendrum gongorarum.
The first, a lemon color, takes after his surname, and the second, a shade of brown, comes from Góngora, the surname of his in-laws who hosted him and his wife when they became trapped in Colombia for five months during the Covid-19 lockdown.