Van Breda’s genera et species Orchidearum Fasc. IIII effectively published

The thin formidable-sized folio book by J.G.S. van Breda ‘Genera et species Orchidearum, etc.’ is a little-known publication even to orchidologists, as most of the new names proposed in it have disappeared into synonymy long ago. It was never finished, only three fascicles of the eighteen promised are generally supposed to have been published. For their publication dates see De Wit (1950) and Stafleu & Cowan (1976). In the library of the former ‘Koloniaal Museum’, Haarlem, the Netherlands, now the ‘Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen’ (KIT), Amsterdam, the former draughtsman of the Flora Malesiana Foundation and amateur orchidologist J. Vuijk found a copy which contained not three, but four fascicles. At that time this was merely briefly noted (Van Steenis-Kruseman, 1965).