Cláudio: I was born in Vitória, in the state of Espírito Santo. Nowadays I work at the Botanical Garden, although I still have my home in Santa Teresa no Espírito Santo, where my wife still lives.
My father had a small farm and I always was there. Much more to keep company and to talk with him. He was a very funny person and passed way recently when I was in the middle of my thesis. He loved plants and had orchids at home. Just before dying, he became a little enthusiastic over looking for orchids.
He would do a homepage in Internet, also about orchids and he had a site, which was his model. Yours, Brazilian Orchids. Did you know about it, didn't you?
When I was talking with my mother about the interview, she said: "- Delfina is the lady whose homepage your father intended to have as a model". Oh! Heavens! Could it really be? He was a fan of your site, he wanted to do one in the same shape, briefly, the model would be Delfina's page. I did not even know who was Delfina. I found very amusing to finish here. My father sent an e-mail, talked to Delfina, I don't know when.
You should receive kilos of e-mail and I don't know if you keep all of them. My father's name was Paulo Fraga.

ON: We try to keep everything but sometimes we lost many messages when the computer breaks down as well as with the service of Guest-book. This is a kind of service that, suddenly, they erase everything and just tell us that "due to technical matters, all messages are lost". So, we tell to ourselves: " Oh! Heavens! We had 800 or 1.000 messages, we didn't save it and service is gone. We lost everything". We feel great disappointed because the feed back we receive from the people is very important and encouraging. Now, we are trying to save those messages out of the computer to avoid those losses.

Cláudio: You have this site since long time ago.

ON: We started in 1996 and the site has been growing a lot since then.

Cláudio: It is very big.

ON: The site has really a great penetration, we receive e-mails from all around the world, from everywhere in Brazil, from researchers, orchidists, from beginners from orchids societies and associations asking for an authorization to reproduce an article in their newsletter or magazine. Ordinarily, we try to answer all messages but unfortunately we can't keep all of them. When the person is identified as a researcher, we have a special folder for those messages and are useful as a future reference, to keep contact, to clarify some doubt, etc... It is crazy the number of e-mail we receive asking for a link, an information, making remarks about the site. .

Cláudio: My site was small and I received a lot of e-mails. Four or five e-mails about the homepage, asking for the craziest information. My wife found it great: - My god! what amazing thing.

ON: Which is your site in Internet?

Cláudio: It was a Project called Cores - Conservation of the orchids from the sandbanks of Espírito Santo. I don't have it anymore.
Due to a sponsorship I got from "Fundação O Boticário de Proteção à Natureza" (Boticário Foundation to Nature Protection), I should mention the name of this institution every time I present the result of this work. When I signed the contract, it was understood. So I should put my work in media but I didn't know if one day I would be interviewed or if it would appear in a newspaper. What have I done? I did a site.
Turning back to my father, he gave a great encouragement in my formation, when I changed my profession to biologist, however I could go on just as an orchidist, it could not be a specifically professional encouragement.

ON: What is your formation?

Cláudio: I was graduated by the Federal University of Espírito Santo - UFES, but before studying biology, I have been a mechanic, I have done SENAI (Industrial Institution for professional formation) and Federal Technical School.

ON: What kind of mechanic?

Cláudio: Heavy and industrial engines, I have been trainee at Vale do Rio Doce, I worked in a company of hydraulic bombs and another of window frames of aluminum. I also worked as a draftsman of structural part of building. I did not want to study, so I decided to have a profession quickly to have money and to stop studying, or to have a certain independence.
In a certain day, in a company of hydraulic bomb, a young man asked me: That is the hour? I stayed with that in my head because in this phrase " That is the hour ", there is a mount of hidden thing, as for example: That is already the hour to go, this place annoys me, it is as if I am imprisoned and is waiting for the hour to go away. Thus I started to see that I should have one profession that I don't ask my self nor nobody asks me if "that is the hour".
Working, working, I love working, today I am addicted to work, but until discovering what kind of work, it was a complicated process. Really, I was not interested in studying. In the end of the Technical School, I started to be interest in studying, but it was already excessively late, I was already about to finish the course. My classmates made a job about me because when I went for the vacations, I was one of the worst pupils of the room, when I came back I was the best pupil of the class and the buddies spoke: - This guy got some shocks during the vacations.

ON: You changed from a total disinterest into the absolute interest.

Cláudio: I did the preparatory studies to the examinations to get into college and, as all good pupil of school technique, I chose engineering mechanics and, thanks to God, I did not succeed. Today I see it in that way, but by this time I was sad. My father, who is a very present person in my life, spoke that while I did not admit that I was illiterate, I would not pass in any examination. Then, I decided to attend a preparatory course as if I was illiterate. I did the examination for Biology, I got the second place, I entered in the University, I finished the course of graduation in 4 years.

I had period of training sponsored for "Aracruz Celulose", later for the "Bahia Sul" and had two grant-aided for scientific initiation when I was already working as botanist.

ON: How did you get into this world of orchids?

Cláudio: I was guided by a botanist from Espirito Santo called Oberdan Jose Pereira. I wanted to make area of sandbanks and he not only agreed that we studied any group of plants but also would guide us since we studied areas of sandbanks because that was the area he was working. Why? Because within his project of knowing the flora as a whole, he needed people to clarified doubts in problematic families, thus orchids fit very well into this and he accepted me.
At the very beginning, before having the first grant-aided, before sending the project to be approve or not by CNPq (National Council for Scientific Researches), I started to determine what had in the Herbarium of the UFEs (Federal College of Espírito Santo), within the project sponsored by Aracruz Cellulose. In l993, I went for the Congress of Rio Grande do Sul, carrying a box of dry plants. There I met Fábio de Barros, a specialist in orchids. He calmly examined all plants with me, showed me the mistakes, the majority of them due to the lack of updating, or to put into another way, the material had been determined being based on Flora Brasílica or on Pabst's work, due to lack of recent articles. Oberdan phoned to Fábio de Barros and he told that he would help me with any doubt in that family.
Effectively, we did the first project, which concerned the orchids of the sandbanks of the park Paulo Cesar Vinhas (by this time, called Park of Setiba, in Guarapari - ES). I used those data in my thesis too. Then, since the middle of l994, I have been already collecting which culminated in this thesis. Perhaps you look and say that this thesis is very big but it was not done in just two or three years, it took a lot of time to be done. Later I had my second granted-aid of scientific initiation that was really the beginning of this project.

ON: But, then it was an ample project, more extensive.

Cláudio: The project concerned the orchids from the sandbanks of the state of Espírito Santo that had to be done within a year. Of course, I didn't succeed but I traveled the state from south to north, from east to west, going backward and forward.

ON: You mentioned the "Fundação O Boticário", but you have also received another sponsorships, didn't you?

Cláudio: After getting my degree in botany, I started to give classes as a substitute teacher, I submitted my thesis in the end of this period. I got married and moved to Rio, expecting the grant-aided, which just came six months later. Things were very difficult and made me to send a project to " O Boticário Foundation" , to be a candidate for a prize, to get ways that I would never take, by laziness, if I had the grant-aided.
Every thing worked, I received a backing of US$10.000 from the "Fundação O Boticário de Proteção à Natureza". This foundation has an international pact with another institution called "The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation".
Later, I won a prize of R$2.400,00 (Brazilian money), It was a great relief in my live and I became scholarship holder. Before finishing my thesis, the grant-aided finished and I got an invitation to go to Museu de Biologia Professor Mello Leitão (Museum of Biology), in Santa Teresa (ES) and accepted it.
My father passed away by this time. He suffered for nine months with a terrible cancer. I give up everything to help him (I was a scholarship holder). There were something that I could do, but I decreased the rhythm of working. At the Museum of Biology, I noticed that there was another backing of US$ 4.250 from WWF (World Wild Foundation). This institution works in cooperation with another American institution called USAID (United States Agency for International Development). I finished my thesis with this money. It was very interesting because I finished for getting more resources when just a few people have. I started it for being in despair because my wife and I were in difficulties but it was worth.
I left the Museum with a very funny invitation because I came to Rio, to the Botanical Garden by mistake.

Cláudio: Espírito Santo is still a place to have more orchids than Minas Gerais. I started to collect in 94 and I have six new plants. I have already described one Bulbophyllym gomesii, a new species from the Atlantic Forest, I have a Sobralia, two Bulbophyllum and a Masdevallia to be described and a Myoxanthus which is about to be published.

almost three meters height and the flower is the same size of a Cattleya hybrid. How could a plant like this escape to be noticed by someone?

ON: I have already seen the photo and asked my self the same thing.

Cláudio: In fact, I would like to give you, one day, the photos of those new species, when I will have them effectively published in order to avoid problems.

ON: So, it is promised, when they will be published, you give to us to include in Orchid News. Getting back to the new Sobralia, there is an interesting story, you are describing it with Toscano de Britto...

Cláudio: He had something very similar. We talked about the Sobralia, but we did not know exactly what everyone was talking about. I said: "- My new species", He said: "- My new species ". We got in touch and and just have elucidated the question when started to discuss about the plant and I showed him the photo. In fact, I think that Toscano has two new species of Sobralia and I have just this one. He proposed a partnership, but there was a problem. He had already started to do the description of some species with Philips Cribb and I think, this Sobralia was one of those new species. Finally, we will do description together, I have collected this plant, sent the herborized material and everything.

ON: And about the orchids from Espírito Santo, when can the survey be accomplished?

Cláudio: When one studies the part of the mountain regions faced to interior, to the continent. All information available concerns the region turned to the sea. When we say that Domingos Martins is the redoubt of the species, we talk about the part which faces the sea.

ON: Everything is turning to the sea?

Cláudio: No, but Venda Nova do Imigrante, where lives Luciano Zappi is, Santa Teresa where Ruschi lived also. Santa Tereza is on the top, so Ruschi ...

ON: He looked at both sides...

Cláudio: Yes, he did but he looked more at the other side. There is, for example, Pseudolaelia dutrae which is a typical plant of rupestrian fields, in altitude, closed related to Pseudolaelia corcovandensis, that also appears in Minas Gerais. Bulbophyllum terezensis, another plant he described from the continental side of the mountain, a plant that also appears in rupestrian fields, in São José (Minas Gerais) and in many other mountains. However, Renata canaanensis (Pseudolaelia canaanensis) is very local but there are some indications that it is also occurring towards the south of the state, in Venda Nova do Imigrante. Pleurothallis rupestris, do you know it? this "fat" Pleurothallis which grows in rupestrian fields, a plant with terete and acicular leaves, with small with red flowers. It is used as a detector of rupestrian fields. There is it in Espírito Santo, in the hillside turned to the continent. There are many examples like this in other families such as melastomataceae, bromeliaceae. In the south part, there is Laelia tenebrosa, but we have no idea how many last in the state. Why because we have no idea that what last in Tableand Forest. so...

ON: When you say that you have no idea, you mean: you have really no idea or it is a metaphor?

Cláudio: No, we don't know, we have no idea.
Besides those areas to be studied, there is an area in the north of Espírito Santo that had have a great part devastated, the Tablelands Forests, the environmental reserve of the Doce River valley (Vale do Rio Doce), Sooretama. The state is very small but with these enormous varieties, in those forests in the tablelands, in the environmental reserve of Linhares which is the main tableland forest studied in Espírito Santo, we can not imagine.

ON: What is exactly a Tableland Forest and where is it located?

Cláudio: You have to turn back to the geological ages. The Atlantic Forest in Espírito Santo, as well as the one in Rio de Janeiro (except for the one in Campos) is Hillside Atlantic Forest, dated from the Pre-Cambrian age. It is a very old terrain, the rock turned into earth. From time to time, there are those boulders in the middle of the forest and you how it appeared. It didn' appear, it is what was left over. It is quite common in Rio de Janeiro and also in Espírito Santo until the region of Santa Teresa. Then it goes through Pancas, Barra de São Francisco. This is a kind of peculiar terrain to Serra do Mar (Sea Mountains).
In the course of time, part of the hillside of Atlantic forest generated a great quantity of sediment. This sediment slided and stopped in a certain place. It had time to be accommodated, causing that tertiary sedimentary geological formation called Formação Barreiras (Tableland or Plateau, Barrier Formation). In fact, this terrain is not matrix rock, it is sediments that the matrix rock generated. This is a plain of tertiary generation, it is not old. Above this sedimentary terrain, a forest called "Tableland Forest" appeared, an ample forest denominated "Hiléia Baiana". The Tableland Forest is located at the northern extreme of the Espírito Santo and south of the state of Bahia. This is a forest of plain, in fact, of small plateau. It is not a coast plain, sandbanks, they are lowlands forest over a sedimentary terrain.

ON: So this is kilometers of sliding. By the way, why Hylean?

Those environments have not been studied under no point of view and we are just talking about orchids. If we talk about the other trees, how many trees, leguminosae, should occur in Espírito Santo? Nobody knows. Espírito Santo is a big botanical hole, for everything. Nowadays, fortunately, I can extend the research in my doctorate. Today, I send my project for studying the sandbanks of the south of Bahia, Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro, comparing them with the forests of the interior. I will study those forests such as Itacaré, Una, Linhares Environmental Reserve, Santa Lúcia, in Santa Teresa and here in Rio de Janeiro, I will study Macaé de Cima which is already published and also many other studies about the internal woods. I want to compare the sandbanks' flora with the flora of those internal areas in order to know if the plants are distributed from the north to the south or into or towards the continent. According to a result I got, it seems to be towards the continent, I want to prove it. How could I do something like that, if I didn't have Espírito Santo already surveyed? In Rio de Janeiro, it is different; there is a lot of material placed in herbariums.

ON: Into or towards the continent, you mean.

Cláudio: Let' start with the coast. The sandbank is situated in the border of the beaches and has been formed by the dynamic sea action. The sea raised in a certain geological age, which was not the Tertiary age but the Quartenary, already human age, the man was already in earth, the sea had transgressed its coastal line, got into the continent, ascended some meters and spread over the plan areas, mainly where the Tableland forests are, in the north. Why? Because the terrain is more flat, the sea could advance more. After, this sea moved back and the sand stayed there. Who colonized this sand? That is the great question. Some species colonized and after that? Those species distributed themselves all long the coast or they go on having their distribution clutched at the internal forest or older regions? It seems that it is no useful to compare the sandbank in Rio Grande do Sul with that in Santo because they will be different, because they have to be different.

ON: Of course, another formation...

Cláudio: There are some things that get our attention. In the sandbank, for example, there are bushes that also exist in the states of Paraná, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo, but the species occurring inside them are different. The point is to find out what keeps that formation, that shape or could the species be substituted and the shape remains the same? How does this process work? So my study about orchids will be pioneer and will be the base for other studies in the same direction and, in the future, when someone does phytogeographical studies, the ecosystem can be understood. The species are substituted, the distribution is interrupted, or to put another way, the species start here and finish there. However those species that succeed each other are closely related or not? This substitution doesn't interfere in the shape because the bush will be always identical, if you get in, it is completely different. In Espírito Santo, there is a Myrtaceae called Neomitranthes obtusa which it the main phorofyte (where the orchids settle down) and the orchids stay there as epiphyte. In Rio de Janeiro, the plant doesn't exist, I don't know yet very well the sandbanks here but, another plant substitutes that one.

ON: You say, in your work, that there is many thing to be verified in Espírito Santo specially concerning the orchidaceae family, mainly in the internal region, it means, the region that faces the state of Minas Gerais. How do you see the similarity of the occurrence in the states of Minas Gerais and Bahia, can it be considered as a continuation as in the nature, the boundary of the states doesn't exist?

Cláudio: I see that many things which are only reported to Minas also occurring in Espírito Santo.

ON: It will be the same to Bahia.

Cláudio: Yes. When you say that a plant doesn't respect the official frontier, I know that, however the investments do. A financial support to survey the flora such exists in São Paulo and is about to be done in Rio de Janeiro respects the official frontier. Those states have the power of money, the power of fighting for having more money. Espírito Santo is land of no one, is the poor state of the southeast, so it will remain behind in the study of its flora.

ON: Why, in the past, during the period of the great travels, it was not so studied as Minas, for example?

Cláudio: Well, many times, the great travels just passed one time in each place. In Minas Gerais, many people stayed there because of the gold.

On: It was a rich state by this time.

Cláudio: If you look the map of Espírito Santo, sixty years ago, beyond the Doce River was considered as unknown swamp, forest good for railways sleepers, Indian territory and so on. This unknown swamp is part of the sandbank I have studied. 60 years ago, Espírito Santo was in the same situation in the Brazilian map.

ON: Sixty years ago is too recent.

Cláudio: Yes, it is. For example, in Minas Gerais, many people lived there because there was a movement. The Espírito Santo não didn't have it. The state grown with the coffee, but we have never seen it planted in the tableland, in the sandbanks neither in the internal part of the Atlantic Forest, unless when irrigated. There is no irrigation by this time. Where did the coffee go? Santa Teresa, Santa Leopoldina, Domingos Martins, Vila Nova do Imigrante. I am talking about the side facing the sea, where people passed. It is a narrow strip. Many botanists stayed in Brazil, Regnel stayed longtime in Minas Gerais, he came from the Sweden and settled down there. Why? Because there were many companies involved specially with mining industries. Looking for ore was a success, so ...

ON: Due to the opulence...

CL: The opulence or the nobility. Rio de Janeiro was the capital city of Brazil, the king, Dom João VI, decided to create the Botanical Garden with a herbarium and the National Museum with another herbarium. In this city, many people who were born here or adopted here, loved to discover what was a herbarium. Pabst created his own and finishing for having 80.000 as if you start, at home, to place exsiccates in the wardrobe. Nowadays it is the Herbário Bradeanum.

ON: It is very important to know this Herbarium. It has been the subjected of Orchid News # 11. And who did also study Espírito Santo?

Cláudio: Augusto Ruschi who effectively started in l950.

ON: Who became, popularly, known by his studies about the hummingbirds.

Cláudio: Hummingbird in Santa Teresa stays in your finger, you can give water to drink in a small bottle. If Augusto Ruschi wanted to study hummingbird or if the hummingbird hit him, I don't know but what a fantastic place, Santa Teresa, indeed...
This place is the transition of everything. Do you know this lowland forest? It finishes there. The face turned to the sea reaches very closely the Tableland Forest. Santa Teresa is the mountain, is a district that has both sides of the mountain. What is a district? It is a barrier, a imaginary geographical line, a piece of land and, by chance, Santa Teresa is a piece of land that comprehends Serra do Mar (Sea Mountain) and the side turned to the continent. So, it has very different things. The day I publish the orchids of the Biological Reserve of Santa Lúcia, you will shocked with the size of the list. It is absurd. There are 500 hectares and I already have almost 200 species.

ON: A high incidence by m²...

Cláudio: It is very clear it. Augusto Ruschi, in his first day, collected from the number 1 until 50 and so. In Santa Teresa, when I went to work in Mello Leitão Museum, in my first day of work, I collected 63 blooming plants while in the sandbanks, during 3 years, I just found 73 plants. Imagine, in my first day, collecting 63 blooming plants without repetition! I don't know how many plants Ruschi collected because besides orchids, he collected another families. He sent plants to Hoehne, the botanist who created the Botanical Institute of São Paulo. He described 2 species: Campylocentrum crassirhizum and Pleurothallis ruschii. They are very different and are valid. I have never seen Pleurothallis ruschii in anywhere else. I am describing Myoxanthus ruschii we found in another environmental reserve in Santa Teresa, but it is on the top, not in the hillside. Or Santa Teresa is a privileged place or it is a place that has a scientific institution that can bring biologists who can collect plants. I think the same should occur in Domingos Martins, in Santa Leopoldina, in backside of the mountain, Itarana, Itaguaçu, there are many areas which are little studied. I will use Santa Lúcia in my doctorate's thesis.

ON: In your thesis, you approached the ecology, phytogeography and conservation of the orchids from the sandbanks of the state of Espírito Santo. Why did you choose those themes and how did you approach them?

Cláudio: I will explain why I decided to do it in this way. I had got married recently and used to live in Vitória, so I came o Rio de Janeiro because it is close to my home. Here I went the National Museum to get my second university degree in Botany and inside this subject, I could choose any direction. I could have studied a group but I should examine type-materials, a great number of exsiccates and the time was short andI did not have anyone to orientate the revision of a section or a genus, even a small genus such as Notylia, for example. So I decided to get into the floristics. I have already started this project with the orchids from sandbanks in Espírito Santo and it could be finished during the elaboration of my thesis. That is why I decided to study the presence and the lack of the orchids and where they occur inside the sandbanks of Espírito Santo. Many aspects of the orchids in sandbanks represent the word ecology in this title.